Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle: Kim Alswager

Constructor: Kim Alswager

Relative difficulty: Easy? Medium? Let's split the difference: Easy-Medium

THEME: "Down the Tubes" — it appears to be a puzzle about MARIO from the Super Mario Bros. universe; I have no idea what specific game is being referenced visually here (I think it's the original Super Mario Bros.), but it apparently involves WARP PIPES—"pipes" (pictured inside black square configurations) into which two thematic answers enter and from which they emerge (14D: What this puzzle's subject uses to travel to a new location):

The "pipe" answers:

FIREF/LOWER (82D: With 31-Down, power-up that lets this puzzle's subject throw flames)
MUSH/ROOM (87D: With 30-Down, power-up that supersizes this puzzle's subject)

Mystery Block contents:

COIN (4D: Collectible item from the box below)
VINE (7D: Green transport from the box below)
ONE-UP (64D: "Extra life" item from the box below)

Other related answers:

PRINCESS PEACH (24A: Whom this puzzle's subject must save!)
BOWSER'S CASTLE (110A: Enemy lair where 24-Across is held captive)
WARIO (88A: Antagonist of this puzzle's subject)
YOSHI (38A: Green friend of this puzzle's subject)
LUIGI (122A: Brother of this puzzle's subject)
"MAMMA MIA!" (86D: Catchphrase of this puzzle's subject)
NES (71A: Platform with a "Super" popular character, in brief?)
"IT'S-A-ME, MARIO!" (41D: Catchphrase of this puzzle's subject)

Word of the Day: Jupiter HAMMON (40D: Jupiter ___, first African American poet published in North America) —

Jupiter Hammon (October 17, 1711 – c. 1806) was an American writer who is known as a founder of African-American literature, as his poem published in 1761 in New York was the first by an African American man in North America. He subsequently published both poetry and prose. In addition, he was a preacher and a commercial clerk on Long Island, New York.
Born into slavery at the Lloyd Manor on Long Island, Hammon learned to read and write. In 1761, at nearly 50, Hammon published his first poem, "An Evening Thought: Salvation by Christ with Penitential Cries". He was the first African-American poet published in North America. Also a well-known and well-respected preacher and clerk-bookkeeper, he gained wide circulation for his poems about slavery. As a devoted Christian evangelist, Hammon used his biblical foundation to criticize the institution of slavery. (wikipedia)

• • •

[120A: Striking feature of
Jessica Rabbit]

I don't know what to say. I have never played any game in the Mario Bros. universe (despite playing its precursor, Donkey Kong, endlessly when I was in middle school), so I can't tell you if the puzzle looks right, or if the pipe gimmick here is at all interesting or accurate or reflective of actual gameplay. It's one gigantic, oversized, 21x21 shrug from me. Everything I know about Mario Bros, I learned from crosswords. This includes the fact that "IT'S-A-ME, MARIO!" is an anagram of "Marisa Tomei" (thank you, Erik Agard). I guess the "?" boxes are things that you get and they contain mystery bonus items or power or whatever? Again, I have literally never played this game. I mean, if I had played the game, and could explain it to you in detail, would that change your experience of the puzzle? Probably not. This puzzle could not have excluded me more completely if it tried. At least I could finish it. I weirdly "know" a surprising amount of things about Super Mario Bros, just from solving crosswords. WARIO, NES, LUIGI ... probably seen BOWSER before, though I had no idea he had a CASTLE. PRINCESS PEACH sounds vaguely familiar (she was apparently Princess Toadstool in the original version). So I got through it. And the pipe gimmick was easy to figure out, since the clue basically tells you where the second halves of both the affected answers emerge. Maybe the puzzle is visually interesting, but it seems kind of boring. Just a bunch of (mostly short) trivia about the Mario Bros universe. The three "?" squares that items "pop out"of and the pipe-affected answers are the only things that seem at all innovative. But maybe there's a powerful nostalgia factor for people here. And maybe that's enough. For those people. For me, there's nothing here. Hard to rhapsodize about a puzzle built entirely around a piece of popular culture I've never experienced.

Outside the theme, the puzzle felt average to slightly below average. HOE CAKES will always make me laugh, though (5D: Fried cornbread concoctions). I know they're real—I first learned about them from the 1987 movie Hollywood Shuffle. I forget why they were featured in that movie, but they were. Ah, here we go:

Anyway, the name is inherently funny. Beyond that, there wasn't a lot that spoke to me today. VINYASA is a nice, original answer (22A: Yoga style in which each movement is synchronized with a breath). But stuff like A DAY AGO and AS A JOKE are kind of tepid, and ODORED ... well, the less said about that, the better. I have no idea what a POTATO GUN is (83A: Classic kids' toy weapon). The puzzle tells me it's "classic," but ... what, you make a gun out of a potato? We had cap guns, but I don't know anything about POTATO GUNs. Oh, looks like the potatoes are the ammo. The gun is more like a cannon, and it launches potatoes. To what end, I don't know.

A potato cannon, also known as a potato gun or potato launcher, is a pipe-based cannon that uses air pressure (pneumatic), or combustion of a flammable gas (aerosol, propane, etc.), to fire projectiles, usually potatoes. A simple design consists of a pipe sealed on one end, with a reducer on the other end to lower the diameter of the pipe, which has the corresponding lower-diameter pipe attached to it, called the barrel. Generally, the operator loads the projectile into the barrel, then utilizes a fuel or air pressure (or sometimes both) to propel the projectile out of the cannon. (wikipedia)

That just doesn't sound like a "toy," exactly. But I guess if young people "play" with them, then it's in the general category. But POTATO GUN was just one more thing that meant nothing to me today. See also ENTHALPY (69A: Total heat content of a thermodynamic system), a word that seems to be screaming "you've made a typo," but somehow, no. That is, in fact, the spelling. Happy NYTXW debut to ENTHALPY! I think I left this puzzle's wavelength immediately after I got 1A: "Joanie Loves ___" ("Happy Days" spinoff) ("CHACHI"). Total gimme. After that, almost nothing up my alley. Puzzle was still pretty easy, but again and again I ran into things that either fell out of or never entered my memory. Mount ELBERT? (99D: Mount ___, highest peak in the Rockies). PEEP TOE shoe? (89A: Shoe style with a small opening in the front). And LOL that clue on DEREK (34A: Hough of "Dancing With the Stars" fame). Who? The phrase "'Dancing With the Stars' fame" is killing me. That is not a thing. You've already buried me in Mario stuff, couldn't you at least just give me a normal, famous DEREK. Jeter, or Bo? ___ and the Dominoes? Come on. Be a pal.

Bullets:

86A: Bialik of "The Big Bang Theory" (MAYIM) — glad I could remember her name (and how to spell it) today because she crossed both "pipe" answers and I wasn't entirely sure about either (esp. FIREF/LOWER). Side note—seems like a flaw in the execution that FIREF stands alone. LOWER is a real word, as are MUSH and ROOM, but FIREF??? Weird anomaly.
111D: "?!?!?!?!" ("WHAT?") — my sentiments exactly (I actually wrote in "WHA-?" here and left the last square blank because I thought there might be some colloquial spelling happening here, like "WHAA?" or something like that).
17A: Encase in protection (COCOON) — I had a crazy hard time parsing this. Stared at C-C-ON like "WHAA?" Finally got HOUR (2D: Short hand?) (tough one!) and that got me over the COCOON hump. Just in case it's unclear, on a watch, the "short hand" shows the HOUR while the long hand shows the minutes.
100A: ___ Davis, actor and eulogist for Malcolm X (OSSIE) — back-to-back days for OSSIE. Just one appearance in all of 2025, one appearance in all of 2024, no appearances in 2023 ... and here we are. In just two days, he's appeared as much as he has in nearly four years! Crosswordese can go through some real boom/bust cycles.
7A: Peddles (VENDS) — has anyone ever said "VENDS." The only way I've ever heard "VENDS" irl is in the terms "vendors" and "vending machine." VENDS as a straightforward synonym for "peddles"—never. And yet I recognize it as a real word. Some "real" words exist only in captivity (i.e. in crosswords). Just ask ODORED.

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

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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