Since its inception in 1947 by President Harry S. Truman, the function of the Council has been to advise and assist the President on national security and foreign policies. It also serves as the President's principal arm for coordinating these policies among various government agencies. The Council has subsequently played a key role in most major events in U.S. foreign policy, from the Korean War to the War on Terror.
Before I get to the meat of the puzzle, a word about the title. Well, three words: I hate it. Like, viscerally. It's a vicious, stupid, and ultimately inapt title. Why the &$#! are you stepping on bees? Or any insect, really. First of all, insects are living creatures, so leave them be. Second, stepping on a louse will do nothing. Like, if that is your method for getting rid of lice, I have Big News for you, and it's not good. Third, gnats? You're trying to step on gnats? What are you even doing? You look silly. The title is both casually and cruelly human-centered *and* stupid as hell on a literal level—even if you got your jollies squashing insects, a good hunk of these just aren't plausibly killable with your stupid foot. Just a terrible editorial decision, that title. As for the puzzle itself, it's pretty fun, and very ambitious. Some of those insects are really ... long. I mean, putting an ANT in a box, no problem, but putting a whole damn ROACH or LOUSE in there, that's a little more impressive. In general, I enjoyed discovering the insects, and many of the insect-containing phrases were long and colorful in their own right. The Across themers are something close to impeccable. After I got over the initial rebus-discovery hump, only two of the bugs really gave me trouble. I couldn't find that damn FLY because I had BRIEF as my answer to 72D: In a few words, so I kept wondering "How does this work? is LYN an insect? YNN?" Started thinking maybe the phrase was actually "IN LIKE FLINT" (a '60s spy comedy whose title is a pun on the actual answer). Then realized that 72D wanted an adverb: BRIEFLY. Aha. Worse for me, struggle-wise, was CELTIC KNOT. I found the TICK quick ... but what was supposed to follow "CELTIC," I had No Idea. CELTIC K-O-!? I thought I had an error. Couldn't get the "N" because ERWIN!?!?! (47D: Physicist Schrödinger)! Really? Wow, news to me. Also, DIATOMIC is not a word I really know (52D: Like carbon monoxide) and the clue on WAIT ON was super-ambiguous (56A: Serve), so that whooooooole area was just jacked for a while.
Oh, and as you can see, I couldn't see WAIT ON because I had an "I" where the "O" should be. Always love to be tripped up by the absolute worst piece of fill in the grid, ugh (VASO!? Vas-no!). So the area around TICK and the area around FLY were pesky, but everything else fell pretty easily.
I thought we agreed that PEPE LePew was a sexual harasser / assailant and no longer welcome in the grid. No? OK. I have been on college campuses my whole life and have never heard anyone refer to their class as meeting SEMI-WEEKLY (78A: Common frequency for college classes). Is that every other week? Like, once every other week? Pretty cushy. Or is it twice per week? Because that is pretty normal ... but again, no one but no one calls it that. We somehow make do with "twice a week." Same number of letters, fewer syllables.
People confuse MANET and Monet's *names*, but no one is going to confuse their actual paintings—no one who is paying attention, at any rate. I mean, does this woman like a haystack? Does she?
Hmm, maybe. There is something kind of ... triangular about her. Let's compare.
OK, I take it back, they're very similar.
I read [Onetime auto make...], looked at -EO, and wrote in REO. The REO Prizm, LOL, someone design that, please. The '20s / '90s hybrid no one is asking for! Anyway, GEO, man, forgot about that. It's like Saturn or YUGO. Bye bye bye. Bygone. Which ... gives it at least one thing in common with the REO. OK, that's about enough of that. Hope you enjoyed your bug-hunting escapade. See you tomorrow.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. We regret to inform you... (re: IN LIKE FLYNN)
Relative difficulty: Medium (11:43 on the NYT site, which has an interface I'm not used to, so I felt like I was stumbling around a lot)
THEME: "Season to Taste" — two-part cookie names have their first and last parts clued separately, and the two parts appear on either side of an image; these images turn out to be COOKIE CUTTERS (11A: This puzzle's images, in two different ways), because the image both "cuts" (i.e. divides) the "cookie" name in two and is itself a common Christmas cookie cutter shape (note: the cookie cutter image doesn't have any letter value in the themers themselves, but does in the Down crosses):
Theme answers:
PEANUT [bell shape] BUTTER // RU(BELL)A (23A: Little tyke / Flatter, with "up" // 6D: It was eliminated from the U.S. in 2004)
SNICKER [heart shape] DOODLE // (HEART)FELT (33A: Relative of a tee-hee / Bit of marginalia // 36D: Genuine)
GINGER [tree shape] SNAP // S(TREE)T ART (43A: Pep / Onesie feature // 40D: Some graffiti)
TOLL [angle shape] HOUSE // T(ANGEL)O (52A: Ring / Hold, as inhabitants // 48D: Citrus hybrid)
THIN [star shape] MINT // RE(ST AR)EA (69A: Reduce in volume / As new // 58D: Where to go on a trip?)
FIG [elf shape, allegedly!] NEWTON // TRUE S(ELF) (85A: Kind of leaf / Scientist born on Christmas Day in 1642 // 56D: Personal essence)
SHORT [cane shape] BREAD // BUC(CANE)ER (93A: Possible result of getting one's wires crossed / Moolah // 77D: Pirate)
OATMEAL [man shape] RAISIN // TOO (MAN)Y (102A: Breakfast dish / Fruitcake tidbit // 88D: More than enough)
Word of the Day: SAI (!?!?!?!?!?!?!) (93D: Long-tailed monkey) —
noun
a dagger with two sharp prongs curving outward from the hilt, originating in Okinawa and sometimes used in pairs in martial arts. (google) hmmm, nope, gotta dig deeper, hang on ... here we go:
noun A South American monkey of the genus Cebus in a broad sense. See synonyms under saguin. (wordnik)
• • •
To Will Shortz's enormous credit, he single-handedly and mercifully put an end to the SAI craze of the 20th century. Looks like SAI appeared in two 1994 puzzles, which Shortz probably inherited from Maleska, and then poof, gone, nothing, nada, Never To Return ... until today. That damn monkey roamed the grid with impunity in the last century, with 66 appearances through 1994. And then: *zero* appearances for the next 27 years. And then, tragically: today happened. This makes me sad. But again, though the SAI-less streak has come to an end, it's probably best to focus on the 27-year achievement rather than the one-day failure. So kudos on over a quarter-century sans SAI. It's something to be genuinely proud of.
This was one of those puzzles where I coulda / shoulda just jumped down to the revealer to get a leg up on what the hell was going on, but I'm stubborn, so I just let it unfold top to bottom. Took me longer than it probably should have to realize that the cookies were cookies (PEANUT BUTTER doesn't really scream cookie if it's not in a clearly cookie context), and took me even longer to realize that the shapes were related to COOKIE CUTTERS. Not sure I *fully* grasped that until I hit the revealer at the very end. It's an impressively complex theme, involving a double meaning for "cutter" as well as a double use of the "cutter" square (mere image in the Across, actual answer component in the Down). It's true that you would not use COOKIE CUTTERS on most of these cookies, but that's not really the point. The cookie cutter shapes literally cut cookie names in two. It's wordplay, and that's all it has to be! My only real problem with the theme was that "elf" shape, LOL, what in the world? I mean, look at the grid, above, and you can see *exactly* what the image looked like on my screen, and what it looked like is a chick emerging from an egg? Some weird eagle? It's definitely avian. That square was the last thing I got because a. it looks almost nothing like an "elf" and b. TRUE S(ELF) was somehow hard for me to come up with. Normally when something is hard to come up with, you look to the cross, but in this case the cross was just some weird chicken image, so ... no help. The other images were all pretty self-explanatory, and visually discernible. But "elf," woof, wow. Also, I don't think of "elf" as an iconic cookie cutter shape. I bet if I go downstairs and look at our COOKIE CUTTERS, there's not an elf in the bunch. So the "elf" can take the long-tailed monkey and get the f*&% out of Dodge, as far as I'm concerned, but the rest of the puzzle can definitely stay.
The fill gets awfully rough in a few places, most notably the west, where there's an awful ENG ANAT RAWR STAUB (?) EYER (!?) avalanche. The less said about Cy the SAI, the better (yes, I named him, now say goodbye to him). But the long Downs today are real winners, and the theme is pretty complex and dense, so I can tolerate the patches of rough fill better than I might have under normal grid conditions.
I had AIRS before ACTS, AN "M" before AN "I" , TIA before AVE, and DANE before FINN (before DANE decided to actually show up later in the solve, with the same clue). Also had WET before SOT because WET is a 1000% better answer and also I can't believe we're still doing SOT (120D: Teetotaler's opposite). Had trouble parsing DR. FAUCI (because of the DR. part) and had less than zero idea what a JASON'S Cradle was (100D: ___ Cradle (maritime rescue device)). That's it for non-thematic struggles, though. Solid, solid Christmastime work.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. today is the last day to support the Kickstarter for Peter Gordon's next round of Fireball Newsflash Crosswords (2022!)—20 high-quality current events crosswords focused on names and topics that are in the news at that moment. It's a great way to keep abreast of current events as well as learn names / places / topics before they start showing up in mainstream crosswords. The puzzles are very doable, with any significant difficulty coming primarily from the potential unfamiliarity of much of the newsworthy stuff in the grid rather than from brutally tricky cluing. And in my experience, all the potentially unfamiliar stuff is very fairly crossed, so you're unlikely to get truly stumped. If you're up for an entertaining and informative solving experience, I definitely recommend the Newsflash puzzles. More info here.
Relative difficulty: Easy? Medium? (I was slow 'cause I had a drink)
THEME: "To-Do List" — you have to TICK ALL THE BOXES (43D: Be fully qualified ... or a hint to this puzzle's theme); that is, there are squares that have "BOX" in them (rebus-style) in the Acrosses, but you have to put (or imagine) "TICK" in that same space in order to make sense of the Down crosses:
BLACK BOX (107A: Flight recorder) / CARROT AND STICK (48D: Combination meant to change behavior)
Word of the Day: Ka LAE (southernmost point on Hawaii) (83A) —
Ka Lae (Hawaiian: the point), also known as South Point, is the southernmost point of the Big Island of Hawaii and of the 50 United States. The Ka Lae area is registered as a National Historic Landmark District under the name South Point Complex. The area is also known for its strong ocean currents and winds and is the home of a wind farm. // The name for the southern tip of the island of Hawaiʻi comes from Ka Lae in the Hawaiian language which means "the point". It is often spelled as one word, Kalae, or called South Point or South Cape. A confluence of ocean currents just offshore makes this spot one of Hawaii's most popular fishing spots. Both red snapper and ulua are plentiful here. Locals fish from the cliffs, some dangling perilously over the edge of steep lava ledges. Swimming here, however, is not recommended, due to the current. In fact, it is called the "Halaea Current", named after a chief who was carried off to his death. (wikipedia)
• • •
I just find Sundays grinding, and this certainly wasn't any different. They're just so big that if you have a one-note theme ... by the end, it just feels like being bludgeoned. The concept here is actually fine, I guess. TICK (as in "put 'tick' in") ALL THE BOXES (as in "all the squares that contain the word 'box'"), and there you go. And go and go and go. There was some annoying ambiguity, in that technically They're All Boxes, i.e. I'm solving a crossword, so yeah, boxes everywhere! Also, I had TOOLS and TOYS early on and those seemed just fine as answers for their respective clues, so seeing the whole "BOX" rebus thing was actually weirdly hard for me. Had to get the revealer before I had any idea what was going on. Did I mention I'd had a drink? I'm sure it played a role in my slow-on-the-uptake-ness, but still, wow, it did not gel for me for a long time. Also, I had S-A-- at 18A: Orator's platform and happily wrote in STAGE. Whoops. Ugh, that section, with "POOR ME" as a "sentiment," yikes. Rough (4D: Eeyore-ish sentiment). Anyway, I can't say this was any worse than your average Sunday puzzle, because conceptually, it was not, but Sundays have to be *so* good not to be grating, both theme-wise and fill-wise, by the end. There's just not enough interesting variation in the theme or enough sparkle in the grid to make this solve an enjoyable experience today.
The fill was (on occasion) not doing the puzzle any favors. REIMAGE!? You *definitely* mean "reimagine" (92D: Form a new mental picture of). Def in it ely. And wow I have such profanity written in the margins with an arrow pointing to NO RELATION (91A: Elizabeth Warren vis-à-vis former chief justice Earl Warren).HUS idea was that clue!? Bah. It's an OUTCROPping (ping!), so again maybe try reimagining (!) that answer (90D: Protruding bit of bedrock). OSAY, can you ALEE by the ERGS IDLY LAE... Sigh. PUTS LIPSTICK ON A PIG is a colorful answer, as is HERDED CATS (69A: Managed an unmanageable group, figuratively). HOT HAND I like fine (38A: Sustained period of luck, as with dice). There's just not enough to sustain my interest over the whole 21x21 area. Sundays are hard hard hard to do well. If I see one I like, I'll let you know and praise it accordingly. Until then... this was pretty typical, and typical just hasn't been cutting it with me for a while.
Hey, there's a massive new collection of crosswords out now, made by an all-star roster of constructors, all to benefit COVID *and* Black Lives Matter / racial justice charities (it started out focused on the former and then, understandably, expanded to include the latter). It's called "Grids For Good." All you gotta do is provide proof you gave just $10 (you can do better than that) to the org of your choice and you get the puzzles. There's also a metapuzzle contest going on through July 18, so you can get in on that too. I haven't done the puzzles yet but (scans list of names) yeah, I know these people. You know them too (Agard, Berry, Burnikel, Weintraub, etc.). They do good work. So go give (or regive) some money away, and then get your puzzles!
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (due solely to two extremely *non*-iconic "rolls")
THEME: SPRING ROLLS (59A: Chinese appetizers ... or a punny description of 17-, 28-, 35- and 45-Across) — tv and movie roles (there's the pun!) where part of the name is a spring (!) month:
Theme answers:
MARMEE MARCH (17A: Laura Dern, in "Little Women")
APRIL KEPNER (28A: Sarah Drew, on "Grey's Anatomy")
MELINDA MAY (35A: Ming-Na Wen, on "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.")
JUNE CLEAVER (45A: Barbara Billingsley, on "Leave It to Beaver")
Word of the Day: JICAMA (45D: Mexican root vegetable popular in salads) —
Pachyrhizus erosus, commonly known as jicama (/ˈhɪkəmə/ or /dʒɪˈkɑːmə/ [...] from Nahuatlxīcamatl, [ʃiːˈkamatɬ]), Mexican yam bean, or Mexican turnip, is the name of a native Mexican vine, although the name most commonly refers to the plant's edible tuberous root. Jícama is a species in the genus Pachyrhizus in the bean family (Fabaceae). Plants in this genus are commonly referred to as yam bean, although the term "yam bean" can be another name for jícama. The other major species of yam beans are also indigenous within the Americas. Pachyrhizus tuberosus and Pachyrhizus ahipa are the other two cultivated species. The naming of this group of edible plants seems confused, with much overlap of similar or the same common names.
Flowers, either blue or white, and pods similar to lima beans, are produced on fully developed plants. Several species of jicama occur, but the one found in many markets is P. erosus. The two cultivated forms of P. erosus are jicama de agua and jicama de leche, both named for the consistency of their juice. The leche form has an elongated root and milky juice, while the aguaform has a top-shaped to oblate root and a more watery, translucent juice, and is the preferred form for market. (wikipedia)
• • •
Back-to-back solo women constructors! In the regular flow of puzzles, and not part of some "let's publish women for a change" gimmick! Huzzah. I thought this was very clever, though two of these names were completely unknown to me. I somehow exist in an ecosystem where noone I know seems to watch, let alone talk about, "Grey's Anatomy," despite its being a long-running popular show, so the actress, the role ... zero idea. None. I think there's a doctor on it who was in that teen movie "Can't Buy Me Love" in the '80s ... and I'm almost certain it was created by Shonda Rimes, whom I *definitely* know. But aside from the fact that "Grey's Anatomy" is a medical show that takes place in Seattle, I got nothing to tell you about "Grey's Anatomy." I know that I was *startled* to find, recently, that it was still on the air. I have much better reason to watch "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.," since it's a Marvel property and I teach a class on comics, and yet ... nope. Not one episode. Ever. Marvel properties—not really my thing. I am aware of their existence, but do I have a complete knowledge of all of their casts lists and roles? I do not. This is all to say that I got the "spring" thing early (w/ MARMEE MARCH), so I could infer the month parts of the unknown names fine, but the other name parts were a total crapshoot, which slowed me down considerably. Not terribly hard to put together MELINDA (it's a common name), slightly harder to get KEPNER (familiar, but ... last names can be bleepin' anything).
This jarring contrast between the iconic "roles" of MARMEE MARCH and JUNE CLEAVER, on the one hand, and the more recent TV roles, on the other, took some of the joy and delight out of the solve. Slogging through marginal names, never a great feeling. This is not just a generational thing. It's not that "old" answers are OK and "modern" ones aren't. It's that there are so many ways for people of all generations to know MARMEE MARCH and JUNE CLEAVER (whose TV show is now old, yes, but who is an iconic TV mom on an TV show that's practically synonymous with a cultural phenomenon, namely white suburban conformity)—whereas you pretty much have to watch the TV shows in question to have any idea who APRIL KEPNER and MELINDA MAY are. But again, the concept is sound and the reveal is cute. The rest of the grid is more than good enough. Thumbs up.
Five things:
45D: Mexican root vegetable popular in salads (JICAMA) — I don't know why I love this answer so much, but I do. Maybe because it seems like a food item that is super familiar in my real life, but that I can't remember seeing in crosswords much, if at all. I like that it sits next to LUNA BAR (another good answer—is there a JICAMA LUNA BAR? There is not ... but it looks like you can get JICAMA slaw at Luna's Tacos in Greeley, CO. Just a suggestion.
49A: Santa's helper? (UPS) — boo. This is cynical and dumb. Seems like it could be pretty tricky, esp. if you are unfamiliar with the OPI nail polish brand (which provides the "P" cross here). But from here on out, you should not remain unfamiliar with OPI, because it's a genuinely popular brand and ... well, think how often you see OBI. Yeah. Brace yourself for the OPI wave, esp. if you start seeing more puzzles made by women.
3D: Gets cozy (CURLS UP) — possibly the hardest part of the puzzle for me. I got to this answer very early, got the "CU-," wanted only CUDDLES (UP), and figured that there must be some kind of rebus going on. Usually don't see rebuses on Wednesdays, but sometimes you do. But no. Not today. CUDDLES UP just seems cozier to me than CURLS UP, which is a phrase I can imagine preceding the words "and dies." Nobody CUDDLES UP and dies, is what I'm saying.
64A: Academic's "and others" (ET ALIA) — nah, we use the "et al." shortening like the rest of y'all, trust me
52D: Team head: Abbr. (MGR.) — tomorrow was supposed to be Opening Day ... sigh.
THEME: "What's Shaking?" — a salt rebus, where five squares represent the word "SALT" in the Across and the letter string "NACL" (the chemical formula for salt) in the Down
Theme answers:
RUB SALT IN THE WOUND / RA (N A CL) OSE SECOND
WITH A GRAIN OF SALT / PIN(NACL)E
SALT WATER TAFFY / PUTS O(N A CL)INIC (my fav "NACL" answer)
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH / I(N A CL)UMP (my least fav "NACL" answer)
THE SALT OF THE EARTH / MA(NACL)ES
Word of the Day: LLANEROS (15D: South American cowboys) —
A llanero (Spanish pronunciation: [ʝaˈneɾo], plainsman) is a South American herder. The name is taken from the Llanos grasslands occupying western-central Venezuela and eastern Colombia. The Llanero were originally part Spanish and Indian and have a strong culture including a distinctive form of music.
During the Latin American wars of independence, Llaneros served in both armies and provided the bulk of the cavalry during the war. In 1819, an army of Llaneros, led by Simón Bolívar and José Antonio Páez, defeated the Spanish with a surprise attack when they crossed over the Orinocoplains and the Andes mountains. (wikipedia)
• • •
This is a one-note puzzle, but it's a pretty good note, and the grid is very well built. You've got a stray OHTO or DEUT here and there, but for the most part, the solving experience was cringe-free. As rebuses go, this one was very easy to uncover, as the missing "SALT" shouts at you pretty early on (at least it did to me), and after that the "NACL" bit is not tough to suss out. The rest of the solving experience is just ... finding those squares, which, again, because they are all inside long theme answers that contain the word "SALT," are very easy to see. And there are only five theme squares in the end, so there's not really a hell of a lot going on, themewise, but it's enough. The "SALT" answers were ho-hum, but the "NACL" ones were occasionally very inventive. This was certainly smoother and more enjoyable than your average Sunday NYTXW puzzle (low bar, yes, but baby steps, as they say).
Despite having to slow down to enter the theme squares properly, and repeatedly entering wrong answers or otherwise feeling stuck, I finished this in very good time. I was legitimately surprised to see that I came in under 10. Even easy rebuses tend to hold me up a little bit as I fuss not only with locating the involved squares, but with entering them correctly. So perhaps this puzzle is actually closer to Easy than Easy-Medium, but the distinction doesn't really matter. Started out poorly, wanting BRAGS for CROWS (1A: Boasts), and then wanting DAN for OBI (3D: Martial artist's belt).I still want DAN for OBI, frankly. I kept wanting the [Repeated part of a pop song] to be CODA (I had the "O") but codas aren't repetitions and anyway they belong to classical music, not pop.
My biggest struggle in the NW was also my biggest beef. Orlando CABRERA!? Orlando!? Sigh. OK, yes, he had a nice career, and I mean no disrespect, but if you're going to put a baseball CABRERA in your grid, Orlando ain't it. Miguel CABRERA ... I mean, where do I begin? One of the two or three greatest right-handed hitters of this century. Two-time AL MVP. Four-time batting champion. 11-time All-Star. Probably gonna go over 500 career homers this year. First player since 1967 to win the dang Triple Crown (batting title, HR leader, RBI leader) (2012). But, but ... OrlandoCABRERA!? Orlando? Please. Please. Some respect for greatness is in order. Yes, yes, I am a Tigers fan, and Miggy (i.e. Miguel CABRERA) is a Tiger, and OK yes I do own a Miguel CABRERA jersey, so, fine, bias, whatever. But still, objectively, the only puzzle-worthy CABRERA is Miguel CABRERA. Miguel CABRERA scoffs at your two Gold Gloves. (I'm sorry, Orlando; again, the comparison is unfair; you were a good player)
FIVE THINGS:
36D: Climate change, notably (THREAT) — had "TH" and thought for sure it was going to be THEORY, and I was prepared to be So Mad ... but then it was THREAT, which is accurate. Madness averted (for now)
61D: Fabric with sheen (LAMÉ) — this whole section, this seemingly easy little section in the east, was a real pest. Found RAVE IMAX and SEXT all less-than-easy, but the big problem was this stupid fabric. An "É" is a different letter from an "E," so getting this was a groaner. I would avoid the answer LAME entirely if it were at all in my power. There is no good cluing outcome there.
118A: Moved like Jagr? (DEKED) — this is a valiant attempt at a visual pun (his name is pronounced "YOG-ger"); Jaromir Jagr is a star ice hockey player, and to "deke" is to fake someone out on the ice. Oh, and the clue is a play on the title of this tenacious earworm (do not play; you have been warned):
10D: Sch. with 50+ alums who went on to become astronauts (USNA) — got the "U" and went straight to UCLA. Reflex.
92D: Senator Joni and Dadaist Max (ERNSTS) — Hear me out: What if Joni Ernst is dada? I mean, she's not exactly plausible as a sincere human being. Maybe she is Max Ernst's final, terrible piece of work. Anyway, I would totally watch a sitcom called "The Importance of Being Ernst" if it were about a senator who talked to paintings and spent her public life executing the cruel and inscrutable will of undead Max Ernst. You'd watch too. How could you not?
A few side notes:
First, I don't know if the NYTXW formally gave her credit, but this whole "Woman's Week" event (meant to honor Women's History Month) was the brainchild of constructor and crossword culturista Rebecca Falcon, who contacted all the major daily crossword editors some time ago and asked them if they were willing to do some kind of showcase of women constructors this month (March, Women's History Month). David Steinberg at Universal Crosswords was the one editor who went all in with a full month's worth of puzzles by women, but credit to Rebecca for getting a week out of the NYTXW. Even the WSJ, with its abysmal record of publishing women constructors, got in on the game—there was a very nice meta crossword on Friday by Joanne Sullivan (I can't remember *ever* seeing a woman's name on the byline of their Friday meta). Rebecca told me that there will be women guest-editing at American Values Crossword Club, that Evan Birnholz will have a woman standing in for him tomorrow for the WaPo Sunday puzzle, and there's an all-women-constructors puzzle pack in the NYTXW app this month too, so look for all those things. Kudos to Rebecca for putting the spotlight on women constructors and for highlighting the fact that allllll the editors of major xword dailies are (still, somehow) men.
Second, an important change at Matt Gaffney's Weekly Crossword Contest (*the* weekly metacrossword for metacrossword enthusiasts)—he has switched the site over to a Patreon account. But, as part of this transition, March is *free*. Here are the specs from Matt himself
***First free puzzle is this Friday and the last will be on Friday, March 27th.
***Payments are turned off so no one will be charged when they sign up.
***Cost is $3/month if people choose to keep playing after the free month. If they don't want to, they can cancel anytime up to March 31st and never be charged a dime. They can also get four (additional) free easy contest crosswords right when they sign up by sending me an e-mail with FOUR EASY CONTEST CROSSWORDS in the subject line (those instructions are also at my Patreon page).
Matt has a large and loyal following. If you haven't done meta crosswords before, I highly recommend checking out the free puzzles Matt's offering this month, just to get a taste.
Thirdly, and lastly, I lost my beautiful chocolate lab Gabby on Friday. Last year at this time I had two dogs, two longtime daily companions, two ridiculous weird creatures with totally different personalities whom I'd carry on full conversations with every day of my life. Then Dutchess died last spring. And now Gabby is gone. I don't even know what to say. We are bereft. Here are some pictures of Gabby with her littermate, her brother, her favorite dog of all time: Baxter.
gabby baxter
baxter gabby
baxter gabby
baxter gabby
And here's the best picture I've ever been in, ever.
Blue sky, baseball cap (Tigers!), Binghamton sign, and my big dumb dog with her big dumb tongue.
I was never worthy of her impossible sweetness.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. hey, Daylight Saving Time started! Fix your non-self-adjusting clocks!
THEME: "Down For The Count" — a multi-level "T"-themed puzzle, where the number of "T"s in each themer is the answer that crosses each themer, starting at the dead center and dropping down, thus making a "T" of sorts each time. So the numbers down the middle of the grid (which progress from TWO through FIVE) both indicate the number of "T"s in the themer they cross and form the downstroke of a "T" shape—the whole concept is brought together by the revealer, TEETOTALERS (39A: Abstainers ... or the central column's answers vis-à-vis 20-, 39-, 74- and 101-Across)
Theme answers:
MULTIPLICATIVE INVERSE / TWO
TEETOTALERS / THREE
BABIES 'R' US / JUST KIDDING
THE THEORY OF RELATIVITY / FOUR
"TUTTI FRUTTI" / FIVE
Word of the Day: ABSCISSA (11D: The 1 in (1,2), in math) —
Very mixed feelings here. Like, all over the map. Started out feeling not very good at all, as the fill seemed decidedly subpar. Can't remember the last time I saw SPEE anywhere, yikes. I know it only because I used to do crosswords in the '90s, when megacrosswordese roamed the earth. Between that and ISS RES ISDONE etc. I did not have high hopes for how this thing was gonna go. And honestly, it didn't get too much better. Surprised to see old not-friends like SPEE and ATMAN and ILLE (!?!?). GERALDS and SESAMES are both absurd plurals. MDL couldn't be a randomer Roman numeral if it tried. NONA x/w JAROMIR was harrowing. I just felt like I was wincing a lot. The theme was leaving me cold, too, so far as I could understand it. MULTIPLICATIVE INVERSE is far too technical a term for me to love. THE THEORY OF RELATIVITY has that gratuitous THE to pick up its fourth "T." I was able to write in TWO THREE FOUR and FIVE very early, without really realizing why they were right. I could just see that there was a sequence developing, and they all fit, and the crosses checked out. And then ... it seems a bit of stretch to ask me to see see the answers + number of "T"S as forming the shape of a "T" each time. Those are very very top-heavy "T"s, if that is indeed part of the theme. Only when I was done did I realize that the number crossing each themer corresponded to the number of "T"s in each themer (the "T" total, as it were). That is of course the primary point of the theme. The fact that the intersecting themer / number form a kind of "T" seems like a kind of secondary / bonus theme feature. Are all those "T"-shaped black-square formations supposed to be part of the theme. I'm seeing "T"s everywhere now. A conspiracy of "T"s. . .
So actually solving this brought more lows than highs, which is a problem. Figuring out the theme after-the-fact brought my appreciation back up some, and I want to point out one particularly ambitious aspect of the theme that you might not have noticed. I'm not sure it was strictly necessary, but: the constructor decided that, as part of this TEE-TOTALERS theme, the "T"s that are totaled (i.e. the "T"s in the themers) would be The Only "T"s In The Whole Grid. There are no "T"s in non-theme answers. None. Zero. That's actually very elegant touch, but it also adds a huge level of difficulty. After all, "T" is a very common letter. Hard enough to construct a smooth grid when you get to use all the letters of the alphabet; take away a common letter like "T" and you are in trouble (and that starts with "T" and that rhymes with "P" and that stands for, uh, POSY!). And when I saw the "T"-lessness of the grid (outside the themers), I suddenly had much more sympathy for the bumpy fill. At least there's a reason. At least she was trying to do something big, trying to add tightness and crispness and artistry to this theme that *already* had at least two layers to it. Weak fill is weak fill, and it's hard for me to get past, but this puzzle is trying to keep a Lot of balls in the air at once, and I have to admire the ambition. Ambitious imperfection is so so so much more appealing than mere adequacy, to say nothing of the kind of laziness we see much more often than we should. So even though I didn't exactly like solving this one, I think it's a very promising debut indeed.
As promised, here are some last-minute puzzle subscription gift ideas:
American Values Club Crossword: the premier independent crossword puzzle. Imaginative, contemporary puzzles from an extremely talented and diverse group of constructors. You should already be a subscriber. Go ahead and make someone else a subscriber too.
Matt Gaffney's Weekly Crossword Contest: Matt's contest is by now an institution with a sizeable solving fanbase. Every Friday he releases a metacrossword. You have the weekend to figure out the meta answer. Puzzles cycle through difficulty levels week to week, from pretty easy to Ouch OMG Help! When you get the answer, you enter it on his website, and you can see if you're right and see how many others got it. There are prizes for randomly selected successful solvers. Matt's a great constructor and his contest is justly famous. For the serious solver who wants to spice things up, this subscription is just the thing.
Crossword Nation: Liz Gorski used to be a frequent and beloved contributor to the NYTXW, but she has taken her talents elsewhere, as they say, and one of those places is her own weekly easy themed crossword puzzle. This would make a great gift for someone who enjoys solving but still struggles with late-week puzzles—or for anyone who likes cute current delicious puzzles.
Queer Qrosswords 2: 2 Queer 2 Qurious: Nate Cardin was so successful with his first go at a collection of crosswords to benefit LGBTQIA+ charities that he decided to do another one! It's easy: donate to one of a number of charities, show your receipts, get your puzzles (from some of the best constructors in the business). Do it! Give it as a gift! Go on!
Women of Letters: Patti Varol put together this collection of crosswords by women constructors, to benefit "women-centric charities." As with Queer Qrosswords, you donate to a charity, show your receipts, get your puzzles. Great causes, great puzzles. Go for it.
Outside the Box puzzles (by Joon Pahk): I don't normally go too far into the world of non-crosswords, but the Variety puzzles and Rows Garden puzzles (so fun! see the sample here if you're not familiar with this type of puzzle!) available here are crossword-adjacent enough for me. If you want to diversify your (or someone else's!) puzzling fare, subscribe to Year 5 of Outside Box. Now. Go on!
Fireball Newsflash Crosswords 2020: man I love these things. Biweekly crosswords that Peter builds with answers straight out of recent headlines. If something's in the news, chances are you'll see it here first (crossword-wise). These puzzles are hypercurrent and force me to have to deal on a regular basis with names I don't know—a very important solving skill to have. The Kickstarter for next season (2020) ends at 10pm EST *tonight*, so get over there and subscribe, or buy someone a subscription, and add a newsy dimension to your (or someone else's) solving experience.
Puzzlesnacks by Eric Berlin: Hey, look, puzzles for beginning and intermediate solvers, particularly *kids*. I'll let Eric describe: "With Puzzlesnacks, I specialize in taking variety crossword types generally seen as pretty darn challenging, and making them more accessible to beginning and intermediate solvers. I post a puzzle to the Web site (http://www.puzzlesnacks.com) every Friday -- I want kids to be able to access the puzzle for free. But adults are encouraged to subscribe, for $3 / month. Subscribers get the puzzle sent directly to them by e-mail, and they get a couple dozen bonus puzzles each year as well."
A long time ago, I was solving this puzzle and got stuck at an unguessable (to me) crossing: N. C. WYETH crossing NATICK at the "N"—I knew WYETH but forgot his initials, and NATICK ... is a suburb of Boston that I had no hope of knowing. It was clued as someplace the Boston Marathon runs through (???). Anyway, NATICK— the more obscure name in that crossing—became shorthand for an unguessable cross, esp. where the cross involves two proper nouns, neither of which is exceedingly well known. NATICK took hold as crossword slang, and the term can now be both noun ("I had a NATICK in the SW corner...") or verb ("I got NATICKED by 50A / 34D!")
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