Friend of Nancy Drew / FRI 5-15-26 / Edible algae dubbed "green caviar" / Jarring film transition to a new scene / Language of southern India / Mother of Don Juan / Good name for a yoga instructor / Civil rights activist Williams, an associate of Martin Luther King Jr. / Blind followers, informally / Competitor of the early Chevrolet 490 / Big name in meal prep kits / Use of a popular song to make a scene iconic, in film-speak / Vintage bike feature

Constructor: Maddy Ziegler

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: TELUGU (41A: Language of southern India) —

[red = majority or plurality of native TELUGU speakers]

Telugu (/ˈtɛlʊɡuː/ ^ⓘ; తెలుగు, Telugu pronunciation: [ˈt̪eluɡu]) is a Dravidian language native to the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, where it is also the official language. Telugu is a classical language with a recorded history of at least 2,000 years. Spoken by about 100 million people, Telugu is the most widely spoken member of the Dravidian language family, and one of the twenty-two scheduled languages of the Republic of India // It is one of the few languages that has primary official status in more than one Indian state, alongside Hindi and Bengali. Telugu is one of the languages designated as a classical language by the Government of India. It is the fourteenth most spoken native language in the world. (wikipedia)

• • •

Tale of two puzzles. Well, three quarters of a puzzle and then one quarter of a puzzle. I was crushing this puzzle, a puzzle that at times seemed specifically designed for me, flying along with only slight hesitations here and there, no real difficulty ... and then I hit TELUGU. What made me mad was not the answer itself (it is, after all, "the fourteenth most spoken native language in the world," I can hardly begrudge its presence here) but my knowing it, or at least having seen it before, and just not being able to get a grip on it. That answer was like a wet bar of soap and I kept thinking I had it and it kept popping out of my hands. And then, because it was crossed by BESS (whom I did Not know) and something called SEA GRAPES (ditto), I really spun out (39D: Friend of Nancy Drew + 32D: Edible algae dubbed "green caviar"). I mean, comparatively spun out. I still managed to work around the chaos without too much trouble, but I have to acknowledge that there was, indeed, chaos there, for a bit. TELUGU is a language I learned about not from crosswords (TELUGU hasn't appeared in the NYTXW for 35 years) but from cinema. Specifically, once I started going to the movies in earnest (so, ca. 2023, after the pandemic had lightened up considerably), I noticed that my local Regal cinema frequently showed Indian-language movies I'd never heard of. Not old movies—current movies. There seemed to be a booming industry in Indian-language films that were showing right alongside all the western films at the cineplex, but with none of the commercial hype (that I could see). And I know that at some point I noticed that the languages of some of these films were not ones I had heard of (i.e. not Hindi or Bengali or URDU). TELUGU is definitely one of those languages (apparently there's a whole TELUGU-language film industry, called (unsurprisingly) "Tollywood"). Here's an example—a movie released earlier this month called Jetlee:

Yes, I learned about TELUGU at (or while preparing to go to) the movies. I then forgot it, obviously, but now I am remembering it. Speaking of movies, man, this puzzle really brings the cinematic content. None of your run-of-the-mill movie stuff, this puzzle's got FRED MacMurray in Double Indemnity (the quintessential film noir) and SMASH CUTs (37A: Jarring film transition to a new scene) and NEEDLE DROPs (55A: Use of a popular song to make a scene iconic, in film-speak) and an APE COSTUME!? You had me at FRED MacMurray, puzzle. Cinematic STUNNERS, everywhere I looked. And then lots of other wonderful stuff as well. That opening corner—I don't love that the clue for HOME CHEF reads like a paid ad, but it's still a good phrase, and its partners, "I'M ALL EARS" and "LET ME AT 'EM," are even better. Usually, if I'm compelled to take a screenshot early in a puzzle, it's because the fill is so bad and I feel the need to document it. But today, the opposite. I said "nice" out loud and decided, "you know, I should take a snapshot of niceness, for once."

And then there was "IT'S UP TO YOU," ROGUE WAVE, BACKWOODS, VACANT LOT, LIVE WIRES ... the puzzle delivers on all fronts. The only objection I had along the way was to APE COSTUME ... not to the thing itself, but to the phrasing. I feel like APE SUIT is le mot juste (are les mots justes?). I had APE and immediately thought "how am I going to make SUIT stretch to seven letters." I do like that APE is underneath BANANA, though. Very nice touch.

Bullets:

• 16A: Good name for a yoga instructor (MATT) — cute. I had the terminal "-T" and sincerely (if briefly) thought "... BENT? Are guys named BENT now?" (Bengt, yes, BENT, probably not)

[in which Bengt Ekerot plays Death]

• 1A: To the ___ (as much as possible) (HILT) — MAX! NTH! NINES! It took at least (1 2 3) four stabs at this thing before I got it right.
• 20A: Civil rights activist Williams, an associate of Martin Luther King Jr. (HOSEA) — no idea. A simple biblical clue would've made this easier (for me) but the puzzle was already so easy (for me) that I didn't mind getting slowed down by a mystery proper noun here or there ("there" being TELUGU and BESS). 
• 6D: Mother of Don Juan (INEZ) — not sure I'll ever learn whether this is INES or INEZ, but luckily today I had the "Z" in place (thanks to ELIZA) (19A: Miss Doolittle of "Pygmalion").
• 24D: Setting for the graphic novel series "Persepolis" (IRAN) — yet another way in which this puzzle seemed custom-made for me. I'm finishing up grading for my Comics class just this week, and I (literally!) gave away my copy of Persepolis to a curious student last week. 
• 34D: Break the ice? (THAW) — thawing seems like a completely different phenomenon from breaking, but I guess ice does break up during a spring THAW so ... OK!
• 38D: Blind followers, informally (SHEEPLE) — I thought this was going to be some poker terminology ("blind" is a poker term, right?) (yes). But no, "blind followers" are "those who follow blindly," thus, SHEEPLE. Speaking of people who act like sheep—or vice versa, I guess—looks like I'm going to be seeing The Sheep Detectives this weekend. When I saw the trailer, I was a very hard "no," but friends, and especially this Defector review, have convinced me to push through my extreme reluctance and just go. So I am going to give the talking-sheep movie a try. I do teach a crime fiction course from time to time, so ... maybe it will be relevant. Fingers crossed!

That's all. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
=============================
❤️ Support this blog ❤️: 

• Venmo (@MichaelDavidSharp)]

=============================
✏️ Upcoming Crossword Tournaments ✏️

• Westwords (Berkeley, CA, Jun. 14, 2026)

=============================
📘 My other blog 📘:

• Pop Sensation (vintage paperbacks)

Read more...

Heat setting, perhaps / SAT 8-30-25 / Old-fashioned TV antenna, jocularly / Classic warning to a knight

Constructor: Maddy Ziegler

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: ESPN8 The OCHO (10A: Another name for ESPN8, with "the") —

 

ESPN8 The Ocho is a special program block showcasing seldom-seen obscure sports that airs on the networks of ESPN Inc. The Ocho is also offered as a free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) channel on the Roku Channel, Prime Video and DirecTV Stream.

The Ocho consists of lesser-known, unconventional and humorous sports, occupational competitions, esports and other competitions with some athletic, competitive or physical skill component. The block is traditionally presented in early August, the eighth month of the year. Much of the programming consists of previously recorded content and reruns previously aired on the ESPN networks,^[3] some as far back as the 1990s.

• • •

Very easy except for the part at the end where I stared at 27A: Heat setting, perhaps, stared at all the crosses, and then ... kept staring. As far as I could tell, the answer had to be MEET, but how that clue made sense for that answer was completely lost on me. Was MODEL wrong? Was it YODEL? Could a [Fashion plate, maybe] be a YODEL? Seemed unlikely. I had EARS for the [Old-fashioned TV antenna, jocularly], but were they something else. I'd always known the antenna as Rabbit EARS, so maybe EARS wasn't right at all, maybe it was ... OARS? No, it had to be EARS. Was there another way to spell SEBASTIAN? Was it SABASTIAN? Again, couldn't be. And the "T" in NOT A GOOD IDEA had to be right, which left me with no recourse for 27A: Heat setting, perhaps except ... MEET. So I typed it in, and voilà, the "Congratulations" popped right up. But I still couldn't see the connection between "Heat setting" and MEET. The Heat are an NBA team, so I had already thought of arenas and Miami and Florida etc., to no avail. Home heating didn't seem the right context either. There is no MEET setting on my thermostat (is there??? No, there isn't). At some point my brain finally isolated "heat" and MEET and they played off each other in a way that revealed that I'd been reading both "heat" and MEET incorrectly. That is, I hadn't expanded my idea of their potential meanings far enough. The MEET is a swim MEET or track MEET, part of which might include preliminary races of one kind or another, also known as "heats." Nothing else in the puzzle gave me nearly so much trouble as this clue. Not even close.

Two things I really liked about this puzzle. First, HERE BE DRAGONS, a worthy central marquee answer (33A: Classic warning to a knight). I always think of the phrase as THERE BE DRAGONS, but HERE is right. The Latin phrase is "hic sunt dracones" ("here are dragons"); it's a phrase that became associated with medieval maps, though I just learned that there are only two extant globes that bear this phrase, and that the standard phrase used by medieval cartographers for parts unknown was actually "hic sunt leones" ("here be lions!"). So HERE BE DRAGONS is an anachronism. The clue involves a warning given a knight (33A: Classic warning to a knight). Maybe that's why I thought THERE and not HERE. If I'm warning a knight, I imagine he and I are not already standing where the dragons are ("here"). I'm telling him not to go to some place we're not, namely there. Unless I'm advising him while standing over a map or globe, in which case I guess I could point and say "HERE BE DRAGONS!" Is this warning "classic" or do we just imagine it's "classic"? I don't know of any examples of a knight being given this specific warning. Still, the phrase feels right, and it's colorful, and I liked it. 

The second thing I really liked is an extension of HERE BE DRAGONS—COME TO A BAD END sits right on top of it, and then NOT A GOOD IDEA runs right through both of them. So you've got not just a warning to a knight, you have a whole damn conversation. "HERE BE DRAGONS. NOT A GOOD IDEA. You might COME TO A BAD END." Like HERE BE DRAGONS, RIDDLE ME THIS feels like one of those quaint phrases that's been around a long time, but whose origins seem misty. I feel like "RIDDLE ME THIS, Batman" was a phrase the Riddler used in the old Batman TV show. Is this canonical, or does this just feel like something canonical. Whatever, I got the answer easily, and since it feels right, I'm good. My only real complaint today is that NANAS and NANNY share the same grid. Yes, they are clued as different things, but they just feel too similar. Balked at NANNY for sure because I already had NANAS and thought "no way they're putting NANNY in here too—too close to a dupe." But they did it. Bah. If there are any other tricky spots, or any particularly ugly spots, I didn't notice.

What else?:

• 1A: Title typically abbreviated to its first and last letters (SEÑOR) — I did not know this. Or ... maybe I would've guessed this, but I don't see this abbreviation very often. 
• 14A: ___ Perry, award-winning author of 2022's "South to America" (IMANI) — if I were she, I would probably have appreciated if the clue had bothered to mention that the "award" in question here (or one of them) is the National Book Award for Nonfiction (2022). "Award-winning" is the kind of vague phrase you use to make someone or something seem bigger than it is, like "best-selling." Who knows what it means, exactly? But the National Book Award is the National Book Award. 

• 34A: Kick-starter program? (KARATE LESSONS) — cute clue. Simple. Plays nicely off a pre-existing phrase. See also 43D: Head to town? (MAYOR).
• 6D: Janelle of "Hidden Figures" (MONAE) — if you didn't know her, the time for not knowing her is now over. MONAE is going to be with us for a while so just learn it and store it in your bag of "Future Crosswordese." You're gonna need it. She's kind of a big deal.
• 49A: What dilapidated buildings and rampant graffiti may be a sign of (URBAN DECAY) — the very phrase sounds like something muttered with a judgmental headshake by some suburbanite who's afraid of cities and never sets foot in them. The word "rampant" intensifies this tone. I know that URBAN DECAY is a phrase that exists, and a concept that exists, but most American cities are safer than ever, often safer than suburban or rural areas, so I bristle at anything that imagines urban spaces as crime-ridden dystopias. 
• 53A: Moving well over 60, perhaps? (SPRY) — 60!!!! Ouch. I thought you had to be at least 70 before anyone condescendingly called you "SPRY." Maybe if I imagine the clue as meaning "still moving (at all) when you are well over 60 years old," I can live with SPRY as the answer.
• 33D: Tasteful invitation? ("HAVE A SIP") — this comes awfully close to EAT A SANDWICH territory, but I think framing it as an "invitation" really saves the phrase. Seems very natural in that context.

That's all. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
=============================
❤️ Support this blog ❤️: 

• Venmo (@MichaelDavidSharp)]

=============================
✏️ Upcoming Crossword Tournaments ✏️

• Midwest Crossword Tournament (Chicago) (Sat., Oct. 4, 2025)
• Finger Lakes Crossword Competition (Ithaca) (Sat., Oct. 18, 2025)

=============================
📘 My other blog 📘:

• Pop Sensation (vintage paperbacks)

Read more...