Meccano offering for budding builders / MON 7-13-26 / Singer Vikki with three Grammys / Woodsy abode / Human's earliest phase, according to Freud / Metaphorical Cold War barrier / Small aircraft for short flights

Constructor: Lynn Lempel

Relative difficulty: Challenging (when solved Downs-only)

THEME: PLAYTHINGS (57A: Toys ... or the ends of 17-, 25-, 35- and 48-Across) — last words of theme answers are "things" involved in stage "plays":

Theme answers:

• ERECTOR SET (17A: Meccano offering for budding builders)
• ORAL STAGE (25A: Human's earliest phase, according to Freud)
• IRON CURTAIN (35A: Metaphorical Cold War barrier)
• TURBO PROP (48A: Small aircraft for short flights)

Word of the Day: BASTE (49D: Sew loosely) —

: to sew with long loose stitches in order to hold something in place temporarily (merriam-webster.com)

• • •

Holy cow that was harrowing. I could tell that those NE and SW corners were potential trouble for a Downs-only solver (i.e. me), but I had no idea how much trouble. Banks of longer Downs (7-7-8) ... trying to get into those when you're solving Downs-only can be very tough. In general, the longer the answer, the harder it is to solve without any crosses, and when you're solving Downs-only, most of the time, you don't have any crosses. So from the NW to the SE, I was good. No trouble. I cut a diagonal swath through this one without too much effort. But those NE and SW corners, dear lord. First pass at both of them yielded nothing. And I mean nothing. Even the five-letter downs (which ended up being SCANT and BASTE)—nothing. Nada. I thought SCANT was LEAST (10D: Minimal), maybe, and I had no idea about BASTE (really hard BASTE clue for a Monday, imho—way more people are familiar with basting a turkey, say, than basting as a form of sewing). Luckily, because I knew the theme, I was able to get the STAGE part of ORAL STAGE, so I had some small amount of help in the NE, but I could not figure out the TURBO part of TURBO PROP, so in the SW I was even more at sea. My first breakthrough was LOG CABIN (11D: Woodsy abode), and the "G" from STAGE eventually got me ENRAGED, but WEASELS, boy that took some time (13D: Sneaky types). SLE- could've been SLED. AGR- could've been a prefix (AGRI-? AGRO-?). Was it INCAN or INCAS? BED, BEE, BEG, BEL, BEN, BET ...? I was ready to give in with neither of the big corners finished, but I pushed on and the NE fell first. The SW ... I guessed SETTLED and that started the ball rolling. But that [Emphatic affirmative], yikes, that could've been a million things. "YES I CAN!"? "HELL YES!" I think I tried "I SURE AM!" at one point and then "I SURE DO" just worked better. The very last thing to fall was BASTE, but since I had TRIED before TRIAD, even that last little answer was trouble. So ... a satisfying struggle! Victory was mine! And yeah, the theme ... it's pretty good. Nice bit of wordplay in the revealer. Interesting answers. Very Monday. Thumbs up.

Knowing the theme helped a lot with the Downs-only solve (ORAL STAGE in particular), though I was confused at first because an ERECTOR SET is literally a "plaything" (as in a "toy") and so I kind of expected all the themers to be toys. But then I got IRON CURTAIN and thought, "that's not a toy? Is it? Was there an IRON CURTAIN board game or something?" No. I mean, maybe, who knows, but games and toys are not, in the end, the point of the theme answers. The "Play" in PLAYTHINGS = a stage play. Funny—I saw Death of a Salesman in April, and just today (literally, like an hour ago) my friend Dawn saw the same production and posted about it before the play started, at intermission, and afterward. 

Of course my daughter's whole life is theater. She's living in NYC this summer filling in as a technical director on some show before heading to Nantucket (!) to work at some festival. From there, we'll see her in CA for family vacation before she heads back to Yale for the second year of her MFA program. Is any of this relevant to the theme? Only kinda sorta—I just like talking about my kid. Sue me!

The fill is clean today, but ... Vikki CARR felt very dated (36D: Singer Vikki with three Grammys). Not a Monday clue for anyone under, say 50. I knew her name, but a. I'm not under 50, and b. I thought it might be KARR (though now that I look at KARR, that looks awfully wrong). Can you name a Vikki CARR song? I wanna say "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia." Is that right??? Whoops, no, that's Vicki "Don't Call me Vikki" Lawrence, of The Carol Burnett Show fame. Vikki CARR sang "He's a Rebel" (!). All of her Grammys were for Latin music. 

In the 1980s and 1990s, Carr had enormous success in the Latin music world, winning Grammy Awards for Best Mexican-American Performance in 1986 for her album Simplemente Mujer, Best Latin Pop Album in 1992 for Cosas del Amor and Best Mexican-American Performance in 1995 for Recuerdo a Javier Solís. (wikipedia)

Along with UNSER, Vikki CARR gives this puzzle an old-fashioned feel, but in general the fill is simply broadly accessible, with very little pop culture to date it at all. 

Bullets:

• 29D: Humorous parody (SEND-UP) — another trouble spot. You know what else fits the clue and starts with an "S"? SATIRE!
• 25A: Human's earliest phase, according to Freud (ORAL STAGE) — something about the wording on this clue feels so strange. "Human?" Like, one? The clue feels like it's being uttered by an alien. [Earliest stage of human development] somehow makes more sense / sounds more natural.
• 31A: Ann Patchett novel "___ Canto" ("BEL") — she has a new book out. It's got a horse on the cover but (I hear) has no horses in it at all. I forget the name, hang on ... Oh, right. Whistler. From the cover, it looks like it's about a horse named Whistler, but apparently it is not, in fact, about a horse named Whistler. I've heard good things so I might try to shoehorn it into my book queue, which is currently filled with Colson Whitehead books (currently rereading Crook Manifesto in preparation for next week's release of Cool Machine, the last book in the Harlem Trilogy). Other books in the queue are Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones (which I started on vacation and am really enjoying) and Employees by Olga Ravn (which I'm reading for my Movie Club Book Club) (my Movie Club started a Book Club, what can I say, these things happen)

[Out July 21]

[Again, according to some guy I saw on Instagram: not about a horse]

• 18D: Ohio port on Lake Erie (TOLEDO) — speaking of my (Lake Huron) vacation, we drove through TOLEDO both ways. Despite having gone to graduate school only an hour or so away, I've only ever driven through Toledo ... except for that one time I went to the museum there. A really first-rate institution. Saw a Rubens exhibit there in the '90s. Stunning.

[The Head of Cyrus Brought to Queen Tomyris (Rubens, c. 1622)]
[This painting is massive: roughly 7.5 ft x 12 ft]

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

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. forgot to mention I had PLED OUT before SETTLED (38D: Avoided a trial, say). It felt so right!

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Spicy marinade with chili peppers / MON 1-5-26 / "Yikes!," to a Brit / 1976 film with Robert De Niro as an alienated cabbie / Passengers getting an illicit free ride / Fanny ___, central figure in Broadway's "Funny Girl" / Crazy Horse's people / Losing general at Appomattox / Meeting spot for a company's overseers / Bug killer that goes "smack!"

Constructor: Lynn Lempel

Relative difficulty: Easy (solved Downs-only)

THEME: TOUCHDOWN  (57A: Gridiron success ... or, when read as two words, the conclusion to the sequence formed by the starts of 16-, 24-, 34- and 48-Across) — first words of four themers describe an airplane trip:

Theme answers:

• BOARDROOM (16A: Meeting spot for a company's overseers)
• TAXI DRIVER (24A: 1976 film with Robert De Niro as an alienated cabbie)
• TAKE OFF FROM WORK (34A: Enjoy a vacation day, say)
• FLY SWATTER (48A: Bug killer that goes "smack!")

Word of the Day: ADOBO (20D: Spicy marinade with chili peppers) —

[Chipotles en adobo]

Adobo or adobar (Spanish: marinade, sauce, or seasoning) is the immersion of food in a stock (or sauce) composed variously of paprika, oregano, salt, garlic, and vinegar to preserve and enhance its flavor. The Portuguese variant is known as carne de vinha d'alhos. The practice, native to Iberia (Spanish and Portuguese cuisine), was widely adopted in Latin America, as well as Spanish and Portuguese colonies in Africa and Asia.

In the Philippines, the name adobo was given by colonial-era Spaniards on the islands to a different indigenous cooking method that also uses vinegar. Although similar, this developed independently of Spanish influence.

• • •

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

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

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

[conferring w/ my editor]

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

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

Rex Parker c/o Michael Sharp
54 Matthews St
Binghamton, NY 13905

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

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

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

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

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

• • •

Very easy and a little FLAT (36D: Off-key, in a way). Not off-key FLAT, but old soda pop FLAT. It seems well crafted enough, but there's not enough sparkle, and the theme is actually kind of pedestrian. It's weird that the puzzle has a revealer at all. I guess TOUCHDOWN needed to be a revealer because it didn't follow the pattern of the other themers (which all involved just the first word, not the whole answer). But still ... this is the kind of theme that the NYTXW used to let you figure out yourself. I solved Downs-only (as I always do on a Monday), and I was able to figure out the theme from just looking at the answers. I thought it was a revealer-free puzzle, and was surprised to find that the theme spelled out in the TOUCHDOWN's clue. Unnecessary hand-holding. I think I felt the contrast between the old (semi-sadistic) ways of doing things at the NYTXW and the newer (hand-holding) ways of doing things  more sharply than usual because I had just finished solving a Saturday puzzle from 1986, which I discovered while looking at the movie listings for Jan. 4, 1986 (I'm doing a little "40 years ago" movie-watching project this year). That puzzle ... dear lord. Brutal. 

I "finished" with four wrong squares (see the dark "X" squares, above). Total guesses. There were at least that many other total guesses that turned out to be correct, much to my surprise. AZLE? There's a "city" near Fort Worth called AZLE!?!!? Amazing. I looked it up and it turns out I just happened to stumble upon the only NYTXW puzzle in history to include AZLE. What luck! I always think of Maleska-era puzzles as being far less reliant on proper nouns and pop culture trivia, but this one was loaded. [Rock star John or J.J.] for CALE (I got that one). [TV actor Willie] for AAMES (got that one too—watched a lot of Eight Is Enough as a kid). Anyway, I got Naticked four times in one puzzle. Probably should've been three, maybe even two. But still, yikes. I don't want puzzles to be like that any more, but there's gotta be some happy medium between the often too-easy puzzles of today and the arcane torturefests of yore. I mean, a [Parrot's facial feature] is a CERE!? What am I, a parrotologist? I guessed correctly, but again, I repeat: yikes (or, in the words of today's puzzle, BLIMEY!) (43D: "Yikes!," to a Brit).

["A fleshy or waxlike membrane at the base of the upper beak in certain birds, such as parrots, through which the nostrils open." (American Heritage Dictionary)]
 [CERE has appeared just once in the past 33 years, in 2010, when it was clued [Smear with wax, old-style]. Old-style? What is [Smear with wax, new-style]!?!?! Why were we smearing things with wax in 2010?]

Sorry to talk so much about a 40-year-old puzzle. It was a bad puzzle, but at least it was fascinatingly bad. Today's puzzle just didn't interest me that much. Solid. Workmanlike. A placeholder. No real ugliness. No real difficulty. No real wows. I appreciated STOWAWAYS (28D: Passengers getting an illicit free ride) and PATROLMAN (15D: Police officer who monitors an assigned area)—they gave the grid a little color. And I always like thinking about TAXI DRIVER, one of the greatest movies of all time. But nothing else about this puzzle was very exciting. The feeling I experienced was something closer to ENNUI (13A: Listlessness). 

As I was solving Downs-only, I had to infer the themers, which was a bit of a crapshoot today. That is, my first guess was wrong over and over again. This didn't hold me up too much, but it was a little surprising how many times my first instinct, even with many letters and even entire words in place, was wrong. BOARD GAME before BOARDROOM. TIME OFF FROM WORK before TAKE OFF FROM WORK. And most strangely, TAXI DANCER before TAXI DRIVER. I blame that last one on the fact that "Taxi Dancers" is the theme for my Movie Club this week, and I am currently in the middle of watching the movie we ended up choosing: Deadline at Dawn (1944). Susan Hayward stars as a dancehall girl (i.e. taxi dancer) trying to help a young sailor prove he didn't kill a woman during a drunken blackout. It's a fantastically entertaining if completely preposterous movie. If any other Downs-only solver out there thought of TAXI DANCER before TAXI DRIVER, I'd like to hear about it. I'm pretty sure I'm alone on that one.

Bullets:

• 53A: Fanny ___, central figure in Broadway's "Funny Girl" (BRICE) — solving Downs-only, I was staring at BRIC- here and of course wanted BRICK. Once I got BRICE, I thought, "Oh, right, BRICE Harper" (8x MLB All-Star and 2x NL MVP, currently a member of the Philadelphia Phillies)  But he spells his name BRYCE. I've ... never seen Funny Girl, on Broadway or on film. More of a baseball fan than a Streisand fan (though I realize those are not mutually exclusive). I do kinda like her in What's Up, Doc?, I'll say that.

[and you thought the car chase scene in Bullitt was good...]

• 42D: Overly refined (EFFETE) — I know this is a real word with non-derogatory uses, but it always reads like a (slightly dressed-up) slur to me, suggesting that someone (or something) is not properly masculine. I think the word "effeminate" is running interference in my brain a little here. Anyway, can't imagine ever using this word. But it was easy to get today, as (from a Downs-only perspective), -ILIAL, made FILIAL obvious (teaching about FILIAL piety in the Aeneid every semester didn't hurt me here) (52A: Relating to a son or daughter). And since I had the other "F" from FLY SWATTER, EFFETE went right in ... and closed things out.
• 33D: Actor McGregor with a Golden Globe for "Fargo" (EWAN) — they could have clued him as [McGregor who played Obi-Wan Kenobi] (as they often do, as they did back in June), but then the "Number of Days without a Star Wars Reference" counter would've stayed at its familiar "zero" position. Instead, we take our first step into the unknown, toward a glorious, Star Wars-free future. You might even say that today we have ... a new hope. You might. Please don't. But you might.

That's all. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Getaway where guests are out of fashion? / MON 9-1-25 / RMS Titanic's undoer / Demilitarized space between antagonists / Annoying fee added to a price / Indicator of a half-price deal / Lustrous sheet material

Constructor: Lynn Lempel

Relative difficulty: Easy (solved Downs-only)

THEME: "SO WHAT ELSE IS NEW?" (35A: Sarcastic question answered by the starts of 17-, 25-, 51- and 59-Across) — four theme answers all begin with differently-spelled "NEW" sounds:

Theme answers:

• NUDIST CAMP (17A: Getaway where guests are out of fashion?)
• NEUTRAL ZONE (25A: Demilitarized space between antagonists)
• NUISANCE TAX (51A: Annoying fee added to a price)
• NOODLE SOUP (59A: Ramen or pho)

Word of the Day: NUISANCE TAX (51A) —

1. (derogatory) A tax imposed as a percentage of the selling price of goods or services, payable by the customer and transmitted by the seller to the taxing authority; a sales tax. (thefreedictionary.com)

• • •

From a craftsmanship perspective, this is something close to perfect. It's a simple theme, but it's got an absolutely killer revealer, and the theme is executed neatly, elegantly, and completely—that is, I don't know if there are any unused ways to write the "new" sound. Oh wait! What about the "nou" in NOUGAT? I mean, I can't think of any phrases that start with NOUGAT, but that "nou" would count as an unused "new." Still, this is a very nice set of answers. I confess I don't really know the term NUISANCE TAX. I thought when I looked it up that it would be something akin to a "sin tax," that is, a tax on things deemed to be a societal "nuisance," but no, it looks like it's just a .... tax ... that's annoying. Not qualitatively different from a sales tax. Aren't all taxes annoying? To somebody, surely. I did a cursory news search for the term and found it's not in wide use in this country, but seems to be in many stories coming out of Ghana, for some reason. At any rate, it's a real term. NUISANCE LAW seems like a somewhat more common phrase, and would've fit in the same space, but again, it hardly matters. The theme is still winning. There is a lot of short stuff in today's puzzle, and often that can make for a fairly dull solve, but today's fill is so clean, and the theme is so strong, that the preponderance of short stuff didn't bother me. I didn't really miss the absence of longer Downs. I love when a theme—and particularly an innovative revealer—just works.

The preponderance of short stuff was advantageous to me, as a Downs-only solver. Generally speaking, the shorter the answer is, the easier it is to get with no help from crosses. I ran BIN EDU ROD and GLIB one after the other, no hesitation, which put me in great position to guess my first themer:

Opening up with a NUDIST CAMP definitely sets a tone—a liberated, free-spirited tone. I was like "well, alright, you have my attention, Lynn Lempel." I only needed the first two themers to see that *something* was going on with the "N" beginnings, and then I got to the central answer and, well, that was the real coup de grâce. At that point I was utterly charmed, completely won over. All the puzzle had to do from that point on was not trip over itself, and it managed that successfully. As Monday puzzles go, I couldn't ask for much more. Textbook stuff from the "Queen of Mondays."

My Downs-only struggles were few today. I don't really know the difference between SATEEN and satin, which is to say I don't really know what SATEEN is, but since SATIN wouldn't fit at 5D: Lustrous sheet material, I figured it must be SATEEN. This resulted in an answer that started BOE- in one of the crosses, which initially set off alarms in my head, but then the "S" went into the end of that same answer and I remembered that BOERS exist, so in went the "R," in went ACCRUE, and on I went. I wasn't entirely sure about ACCRUE at first because I wasn't sure how the term "interest" was being used in the clue (6D: Build up, as interest). I was thinking maybe you were building up interest in something in the sense of hyping it. But no, interest was simply building up in a savings or money market or what-have-you account. Wanted YAKKED (sp!?) before TALKED, as TALKED seemed too plain an answer for [Gabbed], which seems to imply a certain chattiness as well as a certain ... gossipiness or excess or something. I also wasn't sure how to take [Dispatches] at 52-Down. I thought maybe KILLS was the answer, but thankfully at that point I knew that that theme answer down there was going to start with a "new" sound, which got me NUISANCE TAX, which got me out of my [Dispatches] conundrum (it's SENDS). In keeping with the theme of "how is this word being used?," I sincerely thought that 36D: Spot to tie the knot (ALTAR) was going to have something to do with a necktie. Alas, NECK wouldn't fit. Maybe I thought the clue said "a knot," not "the knot." At any rate, none of these minor misunderstandings held me back for very long today. I don't time myself anymore, but I feel like if I did, today's would've been one of my fastest Downs-only solves ever.

Bullets:

• 23D: Indicator of a half-price deal (BOGO) — Buy One, Get One. Common retail parlance.
• 50D: Shaft on which a wheel turns (AXLE) — I taught myself the difference between AXLE and AXEL in the most ridiculously gendered way possible. That is, guys are into cars, and women are into ice skating, and since guys are generally bigger than women, the one with "XL" in it is the car one, and the other is the ice skating one, and no I don't care that my "logic" is based on all kinds of false suppositions. It works for my brain, and that's all that matters.
• 1A: RMS Titanic's undoer (BERG) — never really liked this term. In fact, never heard of this ICE-less BERG until I started doing crosswords. Maybe ICEBERG is redundant? Are there other types of BERG? I guess a mountain or a hill can be a BERG (it's literally "mountain" in German). ICEBERG is such a nice-sounding word, whereas BERG just kinda lies there like a lump. Blargh.

OK, that's enough for today. Happy September! Happy Labor Day! See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Milk curdler in cheesemaking / TUE 3-19-24 / Parent dressed up at a pride parade, perhaps? / Oklahoma city named for a Tennyson character / Musical based on a comic strip / Starchy tropical root / Lentils, on an Indian menu / Capital wheeler-dealer, informally

Constructor: Lynn Lempel

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (Easyish but extra-wide (16x))

THEME: HALFTIME (63A: Game break ... or a hint to interpreting the first parts of 17-, 26-, 36-, and 52-Across) — four-letter words at beginning of theme answers must be cut in "half" in order for the answers to makes sense for their wacky clues:

Theme answers:

• MAIN DRAG => Ma in drag (17A: Parent dressed up at a pride parade, perhaps?)
• DOOR NAILS => Do or nails (26A: Choice between a haircut and manicure?)
• BEAT THE CLOCK => "Be at the clock" (36A: "Meet me under Big Ben"?)
• GOON  SQUAD! => "Go on, squad!" (52A: "Continue with your routine, cheerleaders"?)

Word of the Day: ENID (32A: Oklahoma city named for a Tennyson character) —

 

Enid (/ˈiːnɪd/ EE-nid) is the ninth-largest city in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. It is the county seat of Garfield County. As of the 2020 census, the population was 51,308. Enid was founded during the opening of the Cherokee Outlet in the Land Run of 1893, and is named after Enid, a character in Alfred, Lord Tennyson's Idylls of the King. In 1991, the Oklahoma state legislature designated Enid the "purple martin capital of Oklahoma." Enid holds the nickname of "Queen Wheat City" and "Wheat Capital" of Oklahoma and the United States for its immense grain storage capacity, and has the third-largest grain storage capacity in the world. (wikipedia)

• • •

Nice to see Lynn Lempel's name back on the byline. Decades of experience making clever, solid, primarily early-week puzzles. When I wrote "decades" just now I thought "I'm pretty sure I've been seeing her name for two decades, at least, but I better confirm that." Two decades? Ha. I was off by over two decades! This is her 100th NYTXW puzzle in the Shortz Era* and her 102nd overall—her debut was a Sunday puzzle in 1979! I had no idea she'd been constructing so long, probably because even though she has aged (as we're all wont to do), her puzzles never seemed to get old. Anyway, congrats to her on yet another worthy effort. My only disappointment today was that the revealer wasn't snappier, or more apt, somehow. Specifically, the "time" part of HALFTIME doesn't appear to be doing anything. I guess that when it comes "time" for you to make sense of the answer, you have to break that first answer in "half," but that seems pretty tenuous. I was looking for something ... timier to be going on. For instance, BEAT THE CLOCK, which sits dead center, seems to be begging you to think about time. In music, you keep time by following the BEAT. And, well, CLOCK's connection to time is obvious on its ... face. So I thought maybe there was going to be some "time" concept built in, but I can't see it. If the TIME in HALFTIME is doing something I can't see, I apologize. The fact that those four-letter words break perfectly in half to create wackiness, that's plenty of pizzazz for a Tuesday theme. I'm just not sure that HALFTIME, as a revealer, sticks the landing.

Took me a half-beat to figure out the concept today. I was like "oh, she's punning on DRAG, OK, cool ... how is a parent 'MAIN'? One of the 'MAIN' ... people ... in your house?? That seems wr- ... ohhhhh, it's MA! MA IN DRAG! Ah, cool. Good for Ma." I don't think of DOORNAILS as real things—I think of them existing solely as a metaphorical point of comparison, something for people to be as dead as. But I suppose doors must once have had nails, and anyway, "dead as a doornail" makes it a familiar enough term. BEAT THE CLOCK is a general expression for making a deadline, but it's also the name of a long-running game show that has had many incarnations since the early days of television (1949!), the most recent being a kids show in 2018-19, but it's heyday was the '50s.

The fill ran a little on the stale side, but nothing made me cringe except SPOOR (8D: Wild animal's trail), and that's just because I'd rather not have animal droppings in my puzzle. You know, if it can be avoided. Huh, looks like SPOOR is any evidence left behind, anything that leaves a track, trail, or scent. Not just droppings. It's just that SPOOR ... I mean, it's got "poo" built in, so it feels like dropping. The word just has a mild ick factor for me. What "moist" is to some, "spoor" is to me. Then there's AGLARE, which is one of those "a-" words I never quite believe exist anywhere outside of antiquated poetry (46D: Shining brightly). I had AGLEAM in there at first—that's one hell of a kealoa**. If AGLOW had fit, I might've considered that as well. Or AGLIMMER. Is AGLAZE a word? My software is not red-underlining it, which troubles me. Phew, looks like it's a proprietary wax of some sort, and not an actual word, so do not add that to your list of potential six-letter AGL- adjectives. That list holds steady at 2. ABLAZE and AFLAME remain words. Lots and lots of luminescence in the "a"-prefixed adjective category, who knew?

See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. I'll be reminding you all week that These Puzzles Fund Abortion 4 is now available. Here is my description of the details (from this past Sunday's write-up):

These Puzzles Fund Abortion 4 (four!) just dropped this past week—over 20 original puzzles from top constructors and editors—and you can get the collection now (right now) for a minimum donation of $20 (donations split evenly among five different abortion funds—details here). You can check out a detailed description of the collection and a list of all the talent involved here. I not only guest-edited a puzzle, I also test-solved puzzles. I have now seen the finished collection, and it's really lovely, across the board. General editors Rachel Fabi and Brooke Husic and C.L. Rimkus put in a tremendous amount of work ensuring that it would be. The attention to detail—test-solving, fact-checking, etc.—was really impressive. Anyway, donate generously (assuming you are able) and enjoy the puzzle bounty!

P.P.S. here’s one commenter's explanation of the "Time" element of this theme—if it makes sense to you, fantastic!

[I see the 2/2, but not the 4/4 — there’s only one 4 🤷🏻]

*Joel Fagliano is the interim editor, but it's still Shortz's Era until I hear differently

**kealoa = a pair of words (normally short, common answers) that can be clued identically and that share at least one letter in common (in the same position). These are answers you can't just fill in quickly because two or more answers are viable, Even With One or More Letters In Place. From the classic [Mauna ___] KEA/LOA conundrum. See also, e.g. [Heaps] ATON/ALOT, ["Git!"] "SHOO"/"SCAT," etc. 

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Slender tower of a mosque / MON 9-25-23 / Math diagram with an array of dots / Colombia/Venezuela border river / Alif ba ta or hamza / Temporary as a position of leadership / Monkeys with long snouts

Constructor: Lynn Lempel

Relative difficulty: Challenging (for me, solving Downs-only)

THEME: "SO WHAT'S THE STORY?" (62A: "Care to fill me in?" ... or a hint to 17-, 23-, 37- and 55-Across's final words) — last words of themers are components of stories:

Theme answers:

• ARABIC CHARACTER (17A: Alif, ba, ta or hamza)
• SCATTER PLOT (23A: Math diagram with an array of dots)
• EARTH TONE (37A: Color such as khaki or ocher)
• GOAL-SETTING (55A: Preplanning activity)

Word of the Day: BABOONS (41D: Monkeys with long snouts) —

Baboons are primates comprising the genus Papio, one of the 23 genera of Old World monkeys, in the family Cercopithecidae. There are six species of baboon: the hamadryas baboon, the Guinea baboon, the olive baboon, the yellow baboon, the Kinda baboon and the chacma baboon. Each species is native to one of six areas of Africa and the hamadryas baboon is also native to part of the Arabian Peninsula. Baboons are among the largest non-hominoid primates and have existed for at least two million years.

Baboons vary in size and weight depending on the species. The smallest, the Kinda baboon, is 50 cm (20 in) in length and weighs only 14 kg (31 lb), while the largest, the chacma baboon, is up to 120 cm (47 in) in length and weighs 40 kg (88 lb). All baboons have long, dog-like muzzles, heavy, powerful jaws with sharp canine teeth, close-set eyes, thick fur except on their muzzles, short tails, and nerveless, hairless pads of skin on their protruding buttocks called ischial callosities that provide for sitting comfort. Male hamadryas baboons have large white manes. Baboons exhibit sexual dimorphism in size, colour and/or canine teeth development.

Baboons are diurnal and terrestrial, but sleep in trees, or on high cliffs or rocks at night, away from predators. They are found in open savannas and woodlands across Africa. They are omnivorous and their diet consists of a variety of plants and animals. Their principal predators are Nile crocodiles, leopards, lions and hyenas. Most baboons live in hierarchical troops containing harems. Baboons can determine from vocal exchanges what the dominance relations are between individuals. (wikipedia)

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[GIBBONS (not pictured: BABOONS)]

Oof. That was rough. Those 7s (the longish Downs in the corners) really roughed me up, particularly in the NW, where neither PORSCHE nor ATAHALT would come. At all. Plus, never heard of a SCATTER PLOT, so I just stared at S--TTERPLOT like "???" Maybe I have heard of SCATTER PLOT, because eventually that's what I (tentatively) guessed, and that helped me see PORSCHE, but yeesh and yikes. PORSCHE is so far down my mental list of German automakers. Me: "BMW, AUDI, VOLKSWAGEN, MERCEDES ... OPEL? ... man, I am out of ideas." And ATAHALT, so ugly. That section was the toughest overall, but it was not the section that really did me in. That honor belonged to the southwest, but in that case, the problem was All Mine. See, I had -ONS at the end of 41D: Monkeys with long snouts, and while my brain definitely pictured BABOONS, my brain wrote GIBBONS. And the "G" worked and the "I" worked and the "B" (!) worked and the second "B" ... didn't. It gave me MBAT at 58A. And I knew that was wrong. I prayed that was wrong, anyway ... and it was. So I just kept pulling GIBBONS out and then ... putting it in ... and then ... trying to think of other monkeys, and then ... wondering if anything else might be wrong (it wasn't). I kept thinking "OK, what if that cross is MCAT? MEAT?" Only after a bit did I decided to run More of the alphabet, hit the "O," and go "O .......... d'oh! It's BABOONS!" It's BABOONS. (And MOAT)

As for the theme, it feels a little off to me, somehow, starting with the revealer. I found it really hard to parse, and even when I got it I wasn't sure I had it. I can definitely hear someone saying it, exactly as written, but the "SO" part also feels a little extraneous. Beyond that, it's just a "last words"-type theme. CHARACTER, PLOT, and SETTING make sense. TONE ... less so. I mean, yes, stories have tone, but all writing has tone, whereas the other words are all associated much more strongly with fiction in particular. Also, as I say, no idea what SCATTER PLOT. That's on me, for sure; it just seems very non-Monday, as theme answers go. But while that answer is merely somewhat harder than normal, I think GOAL-SETTING is actively not good. I had it correct but could not conceive how it would be clued. I just looked at the phrase like "what ... is that?" Turns out it's the setting ... of goals. PLACE SETTING and JET-SETTING are much much better SETTING answers. TREND-SETTING too. GOAL-SETTING feels forced somehow. BURIAL PLOT & JET-SETTING are the same length and seem like better themer options than their counterparts here.

["Me and Rex took the car, ha ha! Stay home ... Stay."]

Other than the [German automaker] and GIBBONS debacles, my only issue was how to spell NASSER (50D: Egypt's Lake ___, near Aswan Dam). I had NASSAR at first, which gave me ATON in the cross, which is a totally plausible answer. But NASSER ended up feeling more right. Or, rather, NASSAR started feeling wrong. Started looking like a typo of NASCAR. And since ETON > ATON (barely), I decided to gamble on ETON, and it paid off. That's enough for today. See you tomorrow

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. Happy 17th birthday to ... this blog :) Thanks to everyone for reading and hate-reading me all these years. I really appreciate it.

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