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

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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. 

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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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)

• • •

[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.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Spiral-horned antelope / MON 3-6-23 / Cesar who played the Cisco Kid / Kaitlin of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia / Catholic religious order that founded Georgetown University

Constructor: Lynn Lempel

Relative difficulty: Easy (maybe the easiest Downs-only solving experience of my life)

THEME: HUMAN NATURE (55A: Set of traits we all have ... or a two-part description of the answers to the starred clues?) — features of "nature" (i.e. the natural world: landscape, weather, what not) that start with a "human" body part:

Theme answers:

• FINGER LAKES (17A: *Region of upstate New York named for its bodies of water)
• HEADWIND (25A: *Navigation hurdle for a sailboat)
• FOOTHILLS (35A: *Climbers' warm-ups before mountains)
• PALM TREE (46A: *Source of shade on a desert island, say)

Word of the Day: WINESAP (3D: Apple used in cider) —

Winesap is an old apple cultivar of unknown origin, dating at least to American colonial times. Its apples are sweet with a tangy finish. They are used for eating, cooking, and are especially prized for making cider. [...] Winesap was a popular apple in the United States until the 1950s. It stores well, and its decline in popularity has been attributed to the development and increased use of controlled atmosphere storage which allowed a wider variety of apples to be sold over the course of the year. // The Winesap fruit is small to medium with a deep, cherry red skin and a crisp, yellow flesh. It has moderate disease resistance including to mildew and blooms a few days later than other late varieties. It is all-purpose, being used for fresh eating, cider, apple butter, and pies. (wikipedia)

• • •

This is some textbook, classic, old-school Monday stuff right here. Lynn Legend rarely misses, and this is about as good an example of her particular artistry as you're gonna get. It's very hard to make easy, early-week puzzles, and no one does it better. You've got to keep it simple (stupid), but also make sizzle. How do you make Easy interesting, that is the challenge. Here, you've got a rather obvious first-words theme going—I could see the body part angle coming down Broadway)—but then you get this revealer phrase that actually reveals something—another level, a literal duality, that had been hiding inside the answers all along. Solving this one Downs-only was a delight because as the themers came into view, I locked in on the body-part thing, and then I got to the bottom of the grid, got HUMAN- from the Downs, and then stopped and went back to look at the themers so that I could try to guess the revealer phrase. I'd been looking at the first words in the theme answer, which were so obviously linked by their corporeality, but now, going back, I looked at the second words and bam, there it was: LAKES, WIND, HILLS, TREE ... gotta be HUMAN NATURE! And it was. Always fun to test out long Acrosses when you're solving Downs-only. See if you can get them to fly. Earlier, I had the FINGER and thought "What if I put LAKES in the remaining squares?," and having all those letters confirmed by the Downs, bam bam bam bam bam: very satisfying. Probably helps that I live near the FINGER LAKES—was there just yesterday, in fact, seeing the Oscar-nominated animated short films at Cinemapolis in Ithaca. But then I think "What other five-letter word could have reasonably followed FINGER?" FINGER FOODS, I guess. FINGER PAINT, sure. I guess I just got lucky with my first guess there. And with all my guesses thereafter. This really was about the easiest Downs-only solving experience of my life. I was just happy to have the pleasure of being impressed by a genuine AHA moment (32D: "That's brilliant!").

The fill doesn't have anything particularly shiny or impressive about it, but all it has to do is come in clean, and it certainly does that. Yes, there are repeaters, as there always are, but I never felt inundated by the overfamiliar. The grid definitely has an old-fashioned feel to it, but it's a highly polished kind of old-fashioned. Feels like well-crafted grids of yore, from the days when constructors didn't have software to do the heavy lifting. When your weakest entry is something innocuous like IS A (23D: "It ___ tale told by an idiot": Macbeth), you're doing it right. "UP" gets duped in UPEND and SLIP-UPS, but that's such a small thing I doubt anyone but me noticed, let alone cared. Can you guess what the hardest answer was for me, from a Downs-only perspective? Well, there were two, but the first, WINESAP, I ended up taking down relatively easy when I inferred the "-IN-" (from FR-AR and FI-GER, respectively). The tougher answer was actually CAR KEY (42D: Auto access item). Mostly, I just couldn't make sense of the clue. "Access ... item?" I had SALTINE and PASTA on either side of it, but had to run the alphabet at -ARAT (42A: Weight of a diamond) in order to get the "C"—when I was just looking at -ARAT, all I could think of was MARAT, the radical French revolutionary who was assassinated by Charlotte Corday ... which is a very weird thing to think of *before* you think of the much more basic word CARAT. But your brain does what it does, which is why sometimes you have to run the alphabet. 

[TFW the crossword is too hard ...]

Anyway, overall, this was a very enjoyable, if all-too-brief, experience. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Helpful pollinator / TUES 12-27-22 / Passing craze / "Honest" guy on a five / Reddish purple / Catching some Z's

Hello, everyone! It’s Clare, back for the last Tuesday of December, which feels wild to say. How is it almost 2023?! It’s been quite the year — starting my first law-related job, learning I have to be gluten-free, getting into rock climbing, watching all the sports possible, and, of course, continuing to blog about crosswords here with you all. Hope that each and every one of you had a great and fulfilling 2022 and that 2023 continues in the same vein (or is even better). 

As you might expect, I’ve been spending this final month of the year watching World Cup soccer and cheering on the GOAT (Messi, of course; who’d you think?) and, like the rest of this country, falling a little in love with USMNT captain Tyler Adams. The Premier League is finally back, and I gasped in relief at seeing Mo Salah,Virgil van Dijk, and Jordan Henderson all back on the same pitch. This year’s iteration of the Steelers is, to put it kindly, a work in progress, but I was rooting for them hardcore on Christmas Eve against the Raiders in the 50th anniversary game of the Immaculate Reception, especially because the absolutely wonderful Franco Harris died just a few days before. 

I’ve been sequestered from the bad weather while I’m out in California with my family; I hope all of you have been able to stay safe and cozy. I’m sending warm wishes your way. Anywho, on to the puzzle…

Constructor: Lynn Lempel

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: DOUBLE CROSS — (64A: Betray … or a hint to what’s found in this puzzle’s shaded squares) — There are four shaded crosses in the puzzle where the intersecting words each could be placed after the word “double” to form a common phrase

Theme answers:

• STAND AT EASE / SPARKLE (17A: Command for a soldier to relax / 6D: Glisten) 
• BEAGLE / MAGENTA (34A: Snoopy’s breed / 25D: Reddish purple) 
• BILLY / BEANSTALK (Melville’s “____ Budd” / 11D: Means to a goose laying golden eggs, in a fairy tale) 
• CHINA / DIPLOMACY (39A: Tableware for special guests / 33D: Negotiator’s skill)

Word of the Day: MOSELLE (9A: White wine named for the European river valley where it’s produced) —

A river that rises in the Vosges mountains and flows through north-eastern France and Luxembourg to western Germany. It is a left bank tributary of the Rhine, which it joins at Koblenz. A small part of Belgium is in its basin as it includes the Sauer and the Our. Moselle wines are mainly white and are made in some of the coldest climates used for commercial winemaking. (Wikipedia)

• • •

I was so hoping for a puzzle I could rave about to close out 2022. And this… isn’t that. I mean, it’s fine. It’s inoffensive. It’s sort of interesting. It moves smoothly enough. But it didn’t give me any of the “aha!” moments I craved. 

My main issue with the puzzle centered on the theme. I wanted some pizazz, but this theme just fell flat. The positioning of the themers was odd — they’re just kind of thrown in at random spots with abandon, which means giant sections of the puzzle (aka the bottom third of the puzzle) have no theme answers. Also, thinking about the breadth of options that could have gone alongside “double” and then looking at what we got was a bit disappointing. Sure, DOUBLE DATE and DOUBLE EAGLE, etc… work, but why choose them among a whole host of other options, such as: double entendre, double trouble, double whammy, double check, double shot, double scoop, etc? Then, the theme didn’t help with the solve, because, even though I got DOUBLE CROSS (64A) easily, I wasn’t using it to go back and figure out what the shaded sections could possibly correspond to. 

I hit a snag at 26A: Pretends with LETS ON. The colloquial expression LETS ON to me means something much different from “pretends.” I Googled it, and “pretend” does show up as the second definition for “let on,” but I maintain that the phrase means something much different… As my ninth grade English teacher might remind me, connotation and denotation are different things. I also had such a hard time getting LETS ON partially because I didn’t know MOSELLE (9D), which strikes me as a slightly hard word for a Tuesday (or maybe I’m just salty because I like white wine, yet this style was not in my vocabulary). It also took me a bit to get the “e” for STEREO (10D: Sound upgrade from mono) but that just might be on me. 

The rest of the puzzle was decent. Words such as DIPLOMACY, BEANSTALK, DERANGE, RENEGE, CORRAL, LAMENTS, and GRAVEST worked nicely and are ones that don’t often populate an early-week crossword, even though, as Lynn Lempel showed here, they easily could. 

I noticed a mini-theme in the puzzle with animals. There was BAA (11A: Sheepish utterance?) with EMU (16A: Relative of an ostrich) right below it. Then, there was a BEE (42D: Helpful pollinator) in the crossword, CORRAL (50D) was clued with horses, Snoopy a BEAGLE (34A) was almost smack dab in the middle of the puzzle, and LARVA (52D) was clued as a caterpillar or tadpole.  

There was some of the usual three-letter fill such as ALA/LOL/BAA/EMU/FCC/AHA/IRA/SAY that irked me a bit. Some other three-letter fill, SYD/PLY/FAD/AID/PVC, worked a little better. ATARI (22D) and OREO (67A) were other crosswordese. I didn’t know KYD (46A: "The Spanish Tragedy" dramatist Thomas) or NEA (23A), so those threw me for a few seconds.

Misc.:

• W.H. AUDEN’s (13D) poem “Funeral Blues” is probably my favorite poem ever. It’s absolutely stunning. I’ll put just this stanza below, but I encourage you to check the full poem out here. 
• "He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong."
• My family has a Snoopy ornament we all fight over to hang on the Christmas tree, and I got to be the person to hang him on the tree this year. Then, a day after we decorated the tree, it decided to go timberrrrr… While we had several ornament casualties, Snoopy luckily came out unscathed. 
• SYD (38D) and KYD (46A) crossing each other was fun for a Pittsburgh fan like me. Although I assume the cross wasn’t intended as a reference to “Sid the Kid” Crosby, I thought of the Penguin player who, at 35, might not be such a “kid” (or KYD) any more but who is still worthy of loads of notice. 
• I quite liked the clue/answer for 28D: Org. that oversees court battles as NBA. I was wracking my brain trying to think of a law-based answer for this (getting so far as putting “ABA” in as the answer) before I realized what the clue was getting at. 

And that’s all from me! Hope everyone is having a happy holiday season and stays safe and warm. See you next month IN 2023!!

Signed, Clare Carroll, a doubly invested Liverpool fan

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Nonclerical at a church / MON 5-16-22 / Pita sandwiches of deep-fried chickpea balls / Roman garment of old / Big bird in Liberty Mutual ads

Constructor: Lynn Lempel

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: verb like an animal— familiar phrases involving animal similes, all clued [verb adverb]:

Theme answers:

• DRINK LIKE A FISH (20A: Imbibe copiously)
• RUN LIKE A DEER (26A: Move speedily)
• WORK LIKE A DOG (43A: Toil arduously)
• WATCH LIKE A HAWK (52A: Observe intently)

Word of the Day: SOUR BALLS (33D: Tart hard candies) —

: a spherical hard candy having a tart flavor (merriam-webster)

• • •

Very easy, fairly dull. The repeated phrasing made the themers almost ridiculously easy to get, and 4xLIKEA is a lotta LIKEA. The theme is consistent enough, it's just not very playful or interesting. I will also say that RUN LIKE A DEER doesn't seem as strong as the other three. If you said DRINK LIKE, I'd say A FISH. I'd get WORK LIKE and WATCH LIKE pretty quickly as well. But RUN LIKE only makes me think of THE WIND. Further, I only really know the phrase RUN LIKE A DEER from the John Deere ad slogan "Nothing runs like a Deere." Anyway, to get a feel of how unintuitive the DEER answer is compared to the rest of them, consider:

A DEER doesn't even show up on the autocomplete menu, whereas the other options show up first or second in their respective searches. I'm sure RUN LIKE A DEER is a phrase, just not as much of a phrase as the others. Also, zero idea what SOURBALLS are. Had SOUR and no idea what might follow. I know of sour candies (e.g. Sour Patch Kids), but they aren't balls. I know ball candies (e.g. jawbreakers), but they aren't sour. I was just at a loss. SOURBALLS hasn't appeared in the puzzle in twenty years. Maybe they were more of a thing in tymes of yore. (Side note: probably should take "balls" out of the FALAFELS clue if you wanna put BALLS in the grid. It's a conspicuous word. BALLS!) (9D: Pita sandwiches of deep-fried chickpea balls) Everything else in this puzzle was straight over the plate. Very 20th-century familiar, for sure. Skews a little crosswordesey, but not egregiously so.

Wrote in MIATA before MAZDA, which was just stupid (that is, I was stupid) (1D: Japanese carmaker with a CX series). As for the [Noisy scuffle] back-to-backers, once again, as usual, one of the two felt forced and thus tougher than it might've been. ROW was easy, but FRAY ... doesn't really suggest "Noisy" except by inference, so that took multiple crosses to register. The fabric-related meaning of FRAY would've been more welcome today. The same-clue gimmick so rarely works, and I don't really know whom it's supposed to please or impress. But the puzzle was so so easy that no one is likely to complain or even care. Not a lot else to comment on here. We get another long animal answer with GOOSE EGGS, but no simile, alas. Nothing runs like a goose, that's for sure. But GOOSE EGGS is a pretty good answer all on its own. I like LAIT / STAT better than LAIC / SCAT, but I can't say my way's better. LAIC just seems more glaringly crosswordesey, somehow, as does the whole SCAT / SHOO / GIT / SCRAM industrial complex. Also, re: LAIC, what is up with the latter part of the clue? (53D: Nonclerical, at a church). At a church? Where else is something going to be nonclerical? At a 7-11? [Nonclerical] works just fine all on its own. OK, I need to go pet my cat. She really Really didn't want to swallow her pill earlier, and I had to be a little more forceful than I like, and now I feel horrifically guilty (whereas she has probably forgotten). So I'm going to give her a little bonus food and scritch her ears. Good day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Forlorn directionless type / MON 1-10-22 / Greener energy source / Neighbor of Ukraine once part of the U.S.S.R. / Perennial embarrassments for teens

Constructor: Lynn Lempel

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (2:54, which is probably more "Medium" but with Mondays it's really hard to tell gradations of difficulty, since they're all pretty easy)

THEME: That "ole" black magic ...  — every themer ends with a word that rhymes with "roll"; the last two letters of the rhyming words are different in each case (I think every possible combo is represented):

Theme answers:

• CEREAL BOWL (17A: Where to get one's Kix?)
• BILLY JOEL (25A: Singer/songwriter nicknamed "Piano Man")
• LOST SOUL (31A: Forlorn, directionless types)
• EXIT POLL (40A: Survey of Election Day voters)
• CLEAN COAL (... [sigh] ...) (47A: Greener energy source)
• PIGEON HOLE (56A: Categorize simplistically)

Word of the Day: "CLEAN COAL" (47A) —

Coal pollution mitigation, sometimes called clean coal, is a series of systems and technologies that seek to mitigate the health and environmental impact of coal; in particular air pollution from coal-fired power stations, and from coal burnt by heavy industry. [...] Environmentalists such as Dan Becker, director of the Sierra Club's Global Warming and Energy Program, believes that the term "clean coal" is misleading: "There is no such thing as clean coal and there never will be. It's an oxymoron." The Sierra Club's Coal Campaign has launched a site refuting the clean coal statements and advertising of the coal industry. [...] The term Clean Coal in modern society often refers to the carbon capture and storage process. The term has been used by advertisers, lobbyists, and politicians such as Donald Trump. (wikipedia)

• • •

***HELLO, READERS AND FELLOW SOLVERS*** . Happy Newish Year! 2022! I hope you are holding up during these cold, dark days. It's early January, which means it's time for my annual week-long pitch for financial contributions to the blog. Every year I ask regular readers to consider what the blog is worth to them on an annual basis and give accordingly. 

2021 was an important year for me, as my blog (this blog, the one you are reading right now) turned 15 years old! [noisemaker sounds!!!!]. That's a lot of years old. For a blog, anyway. 15 is also a pretty important crossword-related anniversary—maybe the only important crossword-related anniversary. The standard US crossword grid is 15x15, and now Rex Parker is also 15! Rex Parker, spanning the grid to give you the constant variety of crossword commentary: the thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat (dum dum dum DUM!) The human drama of ... OK now I'm just channeling Jim McKay from the '70s-era introduction to "Wide World of Sports," but I do hope this blog has provided some insight, some entertainment, some commiseration, some solace, some sense of regularity during what are obviously pretty tumultuous and often lonely times. I hope it has enhanced your solving pleasure, giving you something to look forward to even (especially?) when the puzzle lets you down, and someone to celebrate with when the puzzle is wonderful. If it's also given you someone to shout at in disagreement, that's OK too.

A lot of labor goes into producing this blog every day (Every. Day.) and the hours are, let's say, less than ideal (I'm either solving and writing at night, after 10pm, or in the morning, before 6am). Most days, I really do love the writing, but it is work, and once a year (right now!) I acknowledge that fact. As I've said before, I have no interest in "monetizing" the blog beyond a simple, direct contribution request once a year. No ads, no gimmicks. Just here for you, every day, rain or shine, whether you like it or, perhaps, on occasion, not :) It's just me and my laptop and some free blogging software and, you know, a lot of rage, but hopefully there's illumination and levity along the way. I do genuinely love this gig, and whether you're an everyday reader or a Sunday-only reader or a flat-out hatereader, I appreciate you more than you'll ever know.

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 two options. First, a Paypal button (which you can also find in the blog sidebar):

Second, a mailing address (checks should be made out to "Rex Parker"):

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

I'll throw my Venmo handle in here too, just in case that's your preferred way of moving money around; it's @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 snail mail contributions will be gratefully acknowledged with hand-written postcards. I. Love. Snail Mail. I love seeing your gorgeous handwriting and then sending you my awful handwriting. It's all so wonderful. Last year's thank-you postcards featured various portraits of my cat, Alfie, designed by artist Ella Egan, a.k.a. my daughter. They were such a hit that I asked Ella to design this year's thank-you postcard as well, this time featuring both my cats. And this is the result. Behold this year's thank-you card: "Alfie and Olive: Exploring the Grid":

We went back and forth on whether she should add more black squares to make the grid look more plausibly fillable (that's a Lot of white space), but in the end we decided not to crowd the jumping (or hanging?) Olive with more black squares, and instead just to leave the card as is, with the idea that the cats are exploring a grid that is ... under construction. Anyway, this card is personally meaningful to me, and also, I believe, objectively lovely. I can't wait to share it with snail-mailers (and oh, what the hell, if you are a PayPal / Venmo donor and you want one too, just say so in the message). 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 and support. Now on to today's puzzle...

• • •

Amanda Carrington, Princess of Moldavia

Flew through this very clean Monday puzzle. I haven't been timing myself lately, and I assumed that I had lost a step, or many steps, speed-wise, as a result, but I clocked 2:54 on this one, which is roughly the Monday average that I had back when I was speed-solving and timing myself on a regular basis. There were a couple hesitations here and there, but for the most part there were no trouble spots. I misspelled ELI Lilly (as ELY) and absolutely blanked on MOLDOVA (38D: Neighbor of Ukraine once part of the U.S.S.R.), which still feels to me like a European country that some soap opera just made up (hmmm, turns out Moldavia featured very prominently in the '80s nighttime soap opera "Dynasty," which may be why MOLDOVA is striking me as fictional; but like MOLDOVA, Moldavia is also real: it's a former principality that's now part of Romania; we now return you to our regularly scheduled programming...). As far as the theme is concerned, I didn't really get why rhyming "oll" words made for an interesting grouping, but after I looked at the answer set a bit, I noticed that despite rhyming they are all spelled differently. That doesn't really alter, or add to, solving enjoyment; it's not the biggest "aha" in the world. But it does turn the ends of the theme answers from a fairly loose and arbitrary set of words into a much tighter and more coherent grouping. There's a rationale beyond mere rhyming. So OK. That's fine. It's a breezy Monday puzzle, and the grid is without gunk, so I can live with this somewhat tepid theme.

What I can't really live with, and what people began squawking about right away, as soon as the puzzle was released, is CLEAN COAL, which is a myth, a disingenuous and dishonest term invented by fossil fuel industry lobbyists. The burning of fossil fuels is by far the biggest driver of climate change. There is no such thing as CLEAN COAL. Booooo and hiss. What's truly horrible about the puzzle doing PR for the fossil fuel industry is that (according to the published Constructor Notes) a. the constructor knew that the term was iffy, truth-wise, and, worse, b. the editors changed her original clue from [Dubious term for a greener energy source] to today's much more coal-friendly [Greener energy source]. 

copied from Twitter, originally from "Wordplay"

CLEAN COAL is a dubious term. They should've stuck with "dubious term" if they were gonna use the answer at all. What's hilarious about their attempt to depoliticize the answer is that it only served to ultra-politicize the answer, and infuriate their actual solving base in the bargain. How was that a good idea? Anyway, if it's not working to end fossil fuel consumption entirely, then it's not "clean," the end.

RAMBLING

Some more things:

• 4D: Like most desserts (SWEET) — I mention this only because SWEET sits alongside ASS, and both of them cross PANTS, so I keep saying "SWEET-ASS PANTS!" to myself, in my head, like I'm complimenting someone's pants ... in my head ... just me?
• 14A: Emerged, as an issue (AROSE) — this makes me laugh because it's usually my first guess in Wordle, which I've somehow become addicted to (nice to have a new addiction that only takes a minute or so each day). I guess either AROSE or ARISE is supposed to be the "best" first guess, given stats on letter frequency and combinations in five-letter words (source: people much nerdier than me). I get bored opening with the same word all the time though, so I mix it up, just for fun. Guess I'll never go pro at Wordle, oh well. Cute game.
• 49D: George or Louis, to William and Kate (SON) — I try so hard not to know things about the Royal Family, please, won't you try along with me? Please?
• 31A: Forlorn, directionless type (LOST SOUL) — Hey! Hey! Hey ... I am not "lost." I'm right here, thank you very much.
• 3D: Perennial embarrassment for teens (PARENTS) — Hey! Hey! Hey ... I was a cool dad, though, right? Right!? Sigh ... 

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

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