Mideast yogurt dip eaten with pita / SAT 5-30-26 / Perpetual homebody? / Flying ___ (train between Mumbai and Surat) / Color effect of a lunar eclipse / Gathering with grills and grilles / Music recording space, informally / Mutual aid event that originated in 1920s Harlem / What's represented by a jiggled thumbs-up, in sign language / Part of a cabinet that's made overseas / Movie trailer narrator's first words, often / Rodent that lives in South American marshes

Constructor: Malaika Handa and Erik Agard

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: BREAD AND ROSES (32A: Old political slogan of the women's suffrage and labor movements) —

"Bread and Roses" is a political slogan associated with women's suffrage and the labor movement, as well as an associated poem and song. It originated in a speech given by American women's suffrage activist Helen Todd; a line in that speech about "bread for all, and roses too" inspired the title of the poem "Bread and Roses" by James Oppenheim. The poem was first published in The American Magazine in December 1911, with the attribution line "'Bread for all, and Roses, too'—a slogan of the women in the West." The poem has been translated into other languages and has been set to music by at least three composers.

The phrase is commonly associated with the textile strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts, between January and March 1912, now often referred to as the "Bread and Roses strike." The slogan pairing bread and roses, appealing for both fair wages and dignified working conditions, found resonance as transcending the "sometimes tedious struggles for marginal economic advances" in the "light of labor struggles as based on striving for dignity and respect", as American sociologist and activist Robert J. S. Ross wrote in 2013. (wikipedia)

• • •

A perfect Friday puzzle. Didn't get here til Saturday, but that's fine. It had enough bite to feel not completely out of place on a Saturday, and it was so entertaining that I didn't care what day of the week it was, frankly. I loved this one despite its being absolutely jam-packed with names, a thing that can be irritating and off-puttingly exclusionary in a puzzle. There are seven (7!) people in this puzzle. That's a lot of people for a puzzle. I don't know what the norm is, but seven seems high. But here's the thing: however you felt about those names, they were all short (5 and under) and they were all crossed very fairly. The only one I out-and-out didn't know was Jessie REYEZ (27D: Singer Jessie with the hit 2020 album "Before Love Came to Kill Us"). I can't believe anyone remembers anything that happened in 2020 (besides ... you know). The others either appear in the puzzle with reasonable frequency (CHU, NAST, ANN) or are famous enough in their fields that I managed to pick up their names (the MYERS-Briggs test is famous, BOWEN Yang has a podcast that Instagram keeps showing me clips of, and LYDIA Ko is a New Zealander, and, as someone who is married to a New Zealander, I tend to notice and think about New Zealand things more than most people Americans, probably—I've long thought that LYDIAKO's full name would look amazing in the grid). So I definitely noticed the names, and the puzzle felt a little like a crowded party, crowded in a way that usually makes me want to head for the door; but today, the longer, marquee stuff shines so bright that I didn't care about all the people. I just wanted to bounce from room to room and bask in its glow.

[17A: Movie trailer narrator's first words, often]

Also, this party had food! Like, a lot of food! Before I'd even circulated very much, I'd had SESAME OIL on NAAN and some LABNEH (which I managed to spell correctly on the first try, [fist pump]!) (20D: Mideast yogurt dip eaten with pita), and then I chased it all down with a couple of PROTEIN SHAKES, which was kind of gross, but, you know, culinarily creative. After that, cleanse the palate with a little BREAD (AND ROSES ... were the roses edible? I hope so. Too late to ask that now), and then a full DINNER (something out of the OVEN BAGS, whatever those are), and then, to round the evening off, you could choose between SCOTCH and PROSECCO. Nice. Oh, and the TINS of popcorn, forgot about them. Thought they were BINS at first, but the puzzle corrected me (53D: Popcorn holders). Overall, an enjoyable eating experience. Probably wouldn't voluntarily drink the PROTEIN SHAKES again, but the rest of it, mwah, delicious. In addition to the people and the food, there were beautiful word installations. Creamy stacks in the NW and SE, crunch colonnades in the NE and SW. I was genuinely sad to hear "PLAYTIME'S OVER!" because I was having such a good time. This grid is polished in ways that so many these days are not. Whatever common / crosswordy stuff you find is small and marginal. Scattered. Inconsequential. This means I can whoosh around the grid without wincing (my preferred way of whooshing: winceless). IN A WORLD overrun by awkward abbreviations and word parts and laugh syllables and archaic phrases no one actually says, this puzzle comes along and it feeds and it entertains, with a great sense of play and humor. I had fun. Turns out this is all I really Really want from a puzzle. SWAMP RAT! Now I remember! That's what was in the OVEN BAGS (it's an acquired taste, I'll admit, but don't knock it etc.).

Puzzle felt easyish from the start despite my muffing not one but two answers in the NW (I had us riding on the Flying RUPEE (2D: Flying ___ (train between Mumbai and Surat) (RANEE)), and I thought the warning sign said DO NOT ENTER (3D: DO NOT ___ (ERASE))). After that, no real missteps, except when I tried to spell the Japanese island HONCHU (60A: Osaka's land) and ended up with someone named AUNT C at 42D: High-ranking women in "The Handmaid's Tale" (AUNTS). I always forget the word DEMUR exists, mainly because I never quite know what it means and (therefore) would never use it myself. It has killed me more than a few times when I'm playing Quordle or Octordle—even when I have most of the letters, I can never make anything out of them until suddenly (if I'm lucky) I remember that the word DEMUR exists (50A: Express misgivings). I think one of the things that confuses me about DEMUR is its near-identical cousin, DEMURE. That's an adjective, and that one, I know. 

Bullets:

• 1A: Man's name that, like Otto, is also an Italian number (TRE) — I guess TRE was at the party too. Left his name off the guest list. Sorry, TRE. This was a great clue. Had me running through my Italian numbers real awkwardly (the only way I can run through Italian numbers, since I don't speak Italian and know the numbers only from crosswords). The coffee place I go to nearly every day, the one where I buy all my beans (because the roaster really knows his craft), is called Otto (the Italian number, not the man's name).
• 29A: "French" or "sliced" haircut (BOB) — got this off the "B"; otherwise, no clue. "French or sliced?" sounds like something someone would ask you at the sandwich counter.
• 57A: Gathering with grills and grilles (TAILGATE) — nice clue. Grills (barbecue) and grilles (front ends of automobiles). 

• 12D: Semi professional? (TEAMSTER) — made me laugh. Professional semi (truck) drivers are TEAMSTERs.
• 28D: Like Cheerios vis-à-vis Lucky Charms, say (OATIER) — this also made me laugh. I'm gonna need to see some data here. What oatiness metric are we using here? Is it just the addition of marshmallows that make Lucky Charms (pound for pound) less oaty? Because the non-marshmallow part of Lucky Charms consists of (I'm told) "shaped pulverized oat" (wikipedia). Lucky Charms is just Doing More. OATIER sounds like something out of Cheerios PR. I can see how they'd prefer that term to BORINGER. 
• 45D: Perpetual homebody? (SNAIL) — just a great clue. Smiled when I figured it out. (the SNAIL of course carries its "home" (shell) around with it at all times)
• 59A: Part of a cabinet that's made overseas (MINISTER) — if you live overseas, this one might've been confusing. The president's "cabinet" in the U.S. is made of "Secretaries" (no MINISTERs) but overseas (UK, India, maybe elsewhere?) you get Cabinet MINISTERs.
• 31A: Music recording space, informally (STU) — again, I laughed. Mainly at how dumb this sounds. I was like "'recording space' ... do they mean like the studio ... oh, noooo is it STU!?!?!" LOL, yes. At least the clue is original. Not just another [Disco ___] or [Poker great ___ Ungar].
• 32D: Color effect of a lunar eclipse (BLOOD MOON) — a great answer—the anchor of a really terrific corner. The PRUDISH PROSECCO BLOOD MOON! ICONIC! Best observed while sipping SCOTCH in HONCHU (helps if you're RICH). Not sure what more you can ask from a Saturday corner. Just lovely.

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...

Cool, in streaming slang / FRI 11-14-25 / Aesthetic associated with classical literature and vintage fashion / One option in a subscription service / It's different from randomness, mathematically / Command that initiates a chase / Board game that begins with players choosing college versus career / Bunin, 1933 Literature Nobelist from Russia / Ring in many Renaissance paintings

Constructor: Malaika Handa

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: DARK ACADEMIA (6D: Aesthetic associated with classical literature and vintage fashion) —

Dark academia is a literary, internet aesthetic and subculture concerned with higher education, the arts, and literature, or an idealised version thereof. The aesthetic centres on traditional educational clothing, interior design, activities such as writing and poetry, ancient art, and classic literature, as well as classical Greek and Collegiate Gothic architecture. The trend emerged on social media site Tumblr in 2015, before being popularised by adolescents and young adults in the late 2010s and early 2020s, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. // The fashion of the 1930s and 1940s features prominently in the dark academia aesthetic, particularly clothing associated with attendance at Oxbridge, Ivy League schools, and prep schools of the period. A number of the articles of clothing most associated with the aesthetic are cardigans, blazers, dress shirts, plaid skirts, Oxford shoes, and clothing made of houndstooth and tweed, its colour palette consisting mainly of black, white, beige, browns, dark green, and occasionally navy blue. 

The subculture draws on idealised aesthetics of higher education and academia, often with books and libraries featuring prominently. Activities such as calligraphy, museum visits, libraries, coffee shops, and all-night studying sessions are common among proponents.

Seasonal imagery of autumn is also common. Imagery of Gothic and Collegiate Gothic architecture, candlelight, dark wooden furniture, and dense, cluttered rooms often occurs. The subculture has been described as maximalist and nostalgic. (wikipedia)

• • •

Mali is a terrific constructor, one of my favorites, which is probably why I was so disappointed by this particular puzzle. It didn't seem up to her normal sparkly standards. I really wish this puzzle had more highlights. Lots of long answers, but only two feel like real winners: DARK ACADEMIA and "SINGLE LADIES" (as clued!). Much of the rest of it feels flat (like bad GINGER ALE). It also feels kinda 10-years-ago. GOSSIP GIRL and MINECRAFT and even PALEO DIET certainly once felt fresh, but now seem a bit stale (PALEO DIET, for instance, appeared three times in 2014-15, and then never again ... until now). I don't like ADDITIVES or FEES (ONE-TIME or otherwise) in my life, so I'm not gonna love them in my grid. OREO COOKIE feels redundant. SESAME SEED feels like 10-letter crosswordese. I like ANTI-RACIST fine, but the clue was unimaginative—an easy fill-in-the-blank, the most obvious place to go for ANTI-RACIST (12D: "How to Be an ___" (book by Ibram X. Kendi)). END GAME has the same cluing problem (31A: "Avengers: ___" (film in Marvel's Infinity Saga)). It felt like puzzle was chasing a kind of pop culture-driven relevance, with lots of proper nouns from movies and gaming and book titles and what not, but it felt like young millennial / old Gen Z nostalgia. Some puzzles are just not for me. 

Plus, in the NW at least, the crosses for the stacks of longer answers were notably strained. POG is bad no matter how you clue it. It was bad as a '90s fad and it's bad now. This particular POG clue (1D: Cool, in streaming slang) ... I honestly didn't even know what "streaming slang" meant. I thought maybe "gaming slang," which was correct, but only in part. It's something that comes from communities on Twitch, where all kinds of things are streamed (even, occasionally, people solving crosswords). I looked up this meaning of POG but quickly wanted top stop reading when I saw that the origins of the term were stupidly convoluted and remembered that I don't actually care. But I have a blog to write, so I persevered. "POG" meaning "cool" (roughly) comes from a Twitch emote ("a small image or icon that represents an emotion, feeling, or action.") called PogChamp, which combined some streamer's surprised "oh cool" face with "the imagery of Pepe the Frog, a popular internet mascot that has sometimes been tied to right-wing ideas." Apparently it was one of the most popular emotes on Twitch. And yet: "The emote was subsequently removed after [the streamer in question] shared some questionable opinions on the January 6th storming of the U.S. Capital." Extreme, predictable LOL. Anyway, POG APIS followed quickly by ISA EELS TSETSE is not an opening that I particularly enjoyed.

The troubliest spots were POG and GOAT (needed every cross to finally "get" it) (GOAT is of course not just an animal but also an acronym for "Greatest Of All Time," which Biles inarguably is). Also struggled with TIER (44A: One option in a subscription service). This def of TIER is just depressing to me. So many ways to take TIER away from the depressing world of payment plans and ONE-TIME FEEs, but no. Capitalism wins again. I also had trouble with the first two letters of "SO DONE," largely because they really Really wanted to be "I'M," as in "I'M DONE," but "I" was in the clue so I knew that couldn't be right. The clue is a complete sentence and the answer isn't and I Hate when clues do that. The phrase is "I'm SO DONE." That is the phrase that is parallel to "I canNOT handle this right now." Cutting off the "I'M" is arbitrary and weird. I'm sure people sometimes say it that way, but again, the clue and answer should match up, grammar-wise. [Unable to handle a situation, in slang]. That would work. Subject-free SO DONE didn't quite work for me. On the other hand, I really (really) loved the clue on SEA SHANTY (69A: Liner notes?). The answer I'm not wild about, but that clue is gold.

Further comments:

• 10A: It's different from randomness, mathematically (CHAOS) — also the vast realm that Satan has to cross in order to find Earth in Paradise Lost, "a dark Illimitable Ocean without bound."
• 27A: Where to set a cocktail garnish (RIM) — true enough, but at home we just drop them in. Hard to drink a cocktail with a garnish poking you in the face or always threatening to slide off.
• 28A: Command that initiates a chase ("GO FETCH!") — had the "ET" and wrote in "GO GET 'EM!" In a harder puzzle, fixing that mistake might've proved very tough. So many letters in common with the real answer.
• 33A: Resource used in 67-Across (ORE) — bizarrely, I got this off the "E" without looking at 67-Across, then went immediately to 67-Across, saw that it started with "M," and wrote in MINECRAFT. Tiny crossference in the W totally opened up the SE. One of the many things that made today's puzzle easier than usual.
• 41A: Board game that begins with players choosing college versus career (LIFE) — I enjoyed remembering this game. Played it a lot as a child. It didn't much prepare me for LIFE, though. For instance, I hardly ever drive around in a plastic six-seater convertible.

• 50D: Horror character known as the Mistress of the Dark (ELVIRA) — another answer I loved seeing, continuing the darkness of DARK ACADEMIA. I remember ELVIRA as the host of some kind of spooky show ... oh yeah, here we go:

Elvira's Movie Macabre (titled on-screen as Movie Macabre with Elvira, Mistress of the Dark in its original run), or simply Movie Macabre, is an American hosted horror movie television program that originally aired locally from 1981 to 1986. The show features B movies, particularly those in the horror and science fiction genres, and is hosted by Elvira, a character with a black dress and heaven bump hairstyle, played by Cassandra Peterson. Elvira occasionally interrupts the films with comments and jokes, and in some episodes receives phone calls from a character called "the Breather" (John Paragon).

• 59D: ___ Bunin, 1933 Literature Nobelist from Russia (IVAN) — never heard of him. Probably should've been my "Word of the Day." BUNIN has appeared thrice in the NYTXW Modern Era, last time in '08. IVAN, of course, has appeared roughly a gajillion times (132 Modern Era appearances, to be exact, but only one of those IVANs was Bunin).

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 ✏️

• American Crossword Puzzle Tournament (Stamford, CT, Apr. 10-12, 2026) (registration opens January 8!)

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

• Pop Sensation (vintage paperbacks)

Read more...

Mother's mother, in Cantonese / FRI 3-7-25 / Service for someone who needs support? / Seat of power in Westeros / Razzle-dazzle of the film industry, so to speak / Leaves for dinner? / Creatures that take over Earth in a 1968 film / Buttery topping for paratha / Admin for an online forum

Constructor: Malaika Handa

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium to Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: STADT (47A: German city) —

There is no distinction between town and city in Germany; a Stadt is an independent municipality (see Municipalities of Germany) that has been given the right to use that title. In contrast, the generally smaller German municipalities that do not use this title, and are thus not included here, are usually just called Gemeinden. Historically, the title Stadt was associated with town privileges, but today it is a mere honorific title. The title can be bestowed to a municipality by its respective state government and is generally given to such municipalities that have either had historic town rights or have attained considerable size and importance more recently. Towns with over 100,000 inhabitants are called Großstadt, a statistical notion sometimes translated as "city", but having no effect on their administrative status. (wikipedia)

• • •

Nice Friday. Unsurprisingly, the things that slowed me down most were the names. I don't pay close attention to children's movies (SID) or the WNBA (REESE) and we tried to watch GOT once (IRON THRONE), but it felt tedious so we didn't go on. But then there were other names that did what names will also do, which is speed you up. OLIVIA RODRIGO was a giant gimme, right across the middle of the grid (33A: Pop star with the #1 albums "Sour" and "Guts"). So, die by the name, live by the name ... only don't really die today. Die another day, maybe, but not today, because crosses were easy enough, and something like IRON THRONE I could eventually infer (51A: Seat of power in Westeros). Beyond the names, this grid was loaded with pretty bright fare. ORANGE SODA! Green cocktails! Who knows what color the donuts in the DONUT SHOP are, maybe pink with sprinkles! Loved SUNDRESS, as it points to the coming warmer weather, just as the very first signs of spring are making themselves felt here in central New York (a smattering of birdsong, temperatures above 40) (srsly, it's been a long cold lonely winter). I love movies, so I wanna love MOVIE MAGIC, but I ... don't even know where I know that phrase from (14A: Razzle-dazzle of the film industry, so to speak). It sounds like something Nicole Kidman says in her promo for AMC Theatres ... you know the thing I'm talking about? Here we go—this:

["We come to this place ... for magic"] 

MOVIE MAGIC sounds like something the industry said to hype itself in, like, the '50s or something (when attendance started to decline precipitously thanks to TV). Whatever the origins, I like the phrase's energy. I wouldn't drink APPLETINIS if you paid me, but I don't mind them as crossword fill (55A: Fruity green cocktails). I like BRA FITTING (10D: Service for someone who needs support?) paired with BLIND DATES (27D: Some romantic setups), as it's at least plausible that you might get one before going on the other. There were some gunky bits along the way. Why does DEG seem today like the ugliest abbr. I've ever seen? (5D: Listing next to one's name, at times: Abbr.). We haven't seen it for a calendar year, and I hope our reprieve is at least that long this next time. Then there's ESS RSS CMS RPM PBR ... speaking of that last one ... I've been aware of PBR (Pabst Blue Ribbon) for a long time. It's an iconic beer. And still ... I can imagine those letters feeling completely arbitrary to someone who isn't familiar (the way the "N.C." in NCWYETH felt completely arbitrary the first time I saw them), so the crosses, the crosses ... REESE would be fine if you went via the candy magnate or the Witherspoon, but putting a WNBA player *there* feels like it might result in a few people crashing out (46D: The W.N.B.A.'s Angel ___). Again, this is all about keeping an eye on your names (esp. when the involved letters are initials!) and crossing them as fairly as possible. I would've gone with a different, more universally familiar REESE, solely because of the PBR cross (though in the end, I think the "R" is pretty inferrable ... I mean, MEESE is a name, I guess, but if you have to guess there, you're gonna guess REESE ... probably). 

Mistakes? Here and there. LATE STAGE just sounded better than LAST STAGE (11D: Final phase). I had to get almost every letter of CAROLED before I saw it, and even when I had it down to a single letter, my brain went "CAROMED?" (15D: Went door to door, in a way). Went looking for an actual, specific German city, of course, but instead got what turns out to the be the word for "city" (and not "state," which is what like it *seems* like it should mean). I also thought that TV's Laura Ingalls might've said that HOPE is the "nicest word there is," but that didn't last long. No idea about POPO (48D: Mother's mother, in Cantonese). Real trouble parsing NO WISER (25A: Still confused). Needed many crosses to see PALETTES (which I mainly associate with painting). So I had to wrestle with this one a little. But just a little. Which is about as much wrestling as I want to do on a Friday. I prefer the whoosh-whoosh, zoom-zoom, and this one did a pretty good job of delivering.

What else?:

• 49A: Buttery topping for paratha (GHEE) — "Buttery" threw me a little, as GHEE ... *is* butter? Right? Clarified butter? Not sure I'd call butter "buttery," but I guess I can't say it's inaccurate.
• 29A: Stretch of land between two hills (DALE) — ah, the DALE/VALE kealoa*. Left VALE off of my list of "mistakes," above.
• 56A: Creatures that take over Earth in a 1968 film (APES) —

• 57A: Glam rock? (MOONSTONE) — is MOONSTONE glittery? I don't really know my lapidary too well. "The name moonstone derives from the stone's characteristic visual effect, called adularescence (or schiller), which produces a milky, bluish interior light" (wikipedia).

• 8D: World Central Kitchen and CARE, in brief (NGOS) — first thing in the grid. Weirdly, I think I learned the abbr. NGOS from crosswords, though now I see / hear it so often, I can't imagine how that's possible. Anyway, proud to be a WCK supporter.
• 25D: Discontinued music players that weigh just over one ounce (NANOS) — Took one look at [Discontinued music players...] and thought, "... all of them?" MINIS and (less likely) ZUNES also fit here. Remember ZUNES!? No? Me either. Well, barely. I never actually saw one in the wild.

• 19A: Leaves for dinner? (KALE)— this is the oldest "?" clue in the book. Genuinely made me laugh, it's so old. Like a vaudeville act. Quaint. It's more typically a clue for SALAD, I think, but you see that "leaves" misdirection for all kinds of things. Tea. Pages in a book. Etc. A classic.

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. shout-out to KIEV, sorry our president is a disgusting tyrant-loving baby.

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]

Read more...

Frequent Ja Rule collaborator / FRI 7-12-24 / Assignment in a classic first job / Secondary social media account, informally / Jewish noodle dish / "Because of Winn-Dixie" narrator / Predator on a continental shelf / What OpenAI's DALL-E creates / "A vodka and Red Bull for the discerning," per Difford's cocktail guide / Rapper featured on Taylor Swift's 2024 "Fortnight" /

Constructor: Malaika Handa

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (if you know the proper nouns ... probably harder if you don't)

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: POST MALONE (29D: Rapper featured on Taylor Swift's 2024 "Fortnight") —

Austin Richard Post (born July 4, 1995), known professionally as Post Malone, is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer, and guitarist. Malone has gained distinction and acclaim for his blending of various genres including hip hop, pop, R&B, and trap. His stage name was derived from inputting his birth name into a rap name generator. [...] Malone is among the best-selling music artists, with over 80 million records sold. His accolades include ten Billboard Music Awards, three American Music Awards, one MTV Video Music Award, and nine Grammy Award nominations. He holds several Billboard chart records: He is the first solo lead artist to top both the Rap Airplay and Adult Contemporary charts, while "Circles" set the record for longest climb to number one (41 weeks) on the Adult Contemporary chart by a solo artist. As of 2024, Malone holds the record for the artist with the most diamond-certified songs, with nine to his name. (wikipedia)

• • •

Usually when I say an answer made me laugh, I mean it figuratively, which is to say that I found it very funny, or it made me smile, so I'm laughing *inside* (it's usually 4 in the morning when I'm writing, with my wife still asleep in the next room, so outright guffawing would generally be, let's say, ill-advised). But today, I actually laughed, because I thought my answer to a clue was funny but that it *had* to be wrong ... only it turned out to be right. I'm speaking, of course, of "GIRL..." (55D: "Let me tell you ..."). The way I heard that answer so clearly in my head, LOL (It's the voice of a Black woman or a gay man or a drag queen). "Girrrrrrl..." is probably closer to the way I'd spell it. So often, crossword clues miss when they try to evoke a specific colloquialism, but this one: right on the money. I wrote in "GIRL..." to amuse myself, but then all the crosses checked out. Such an unexpectedly fun moment— about as much fun as a four-letter answer is capable of generating.

But I was very happy with this puzzle well before "GIRL..." The long answers are Not Wasted in this puzzle. So much marquee goodness just swooshing and SLASHING across this grid. Even the alcoholic abomination that is the ESPRESSO MARTINI felt fresh and fun (as a crossword answer) (39A: "A vodka and Red Bull for the discerning," per Difford's cocktail guide). If I have to have an ESPRESSO MARTINI, I definitely prefer it in crossword form (as opposed to liquid form, hard pass).  I love my coffee and I love my cocktails and never (ever) the twain shall meet. I know that the ESPRESSO MARTINI is one of the hot cocktails of the last decade or so but I just can't. Seems like something for people who drink their cocktails through CRAZY STRAWs. Maybe I just haven't had the right one (I haven't had any—not wasting my one cocktail-a-day limit on that). I do enjoy AMERICANOS, esp. when I know the brewed coffee is going to be *** (looking at you, Starb*cks). But enough about my imbibing preferences. I thought this puzzle did everything a Friday's supposed to do: whoosh and entertain. I can see how the puzzle would be less fun for people who had never heard of POST MALONE or ASHANTI; the latter hasn't really been a big name since ... well, since Ja Rule was a big name (20 years ago?), but POST MALONE is arguably the biggest musical artist on the planet not named Taylor Swift or Beyoncé (see "Word of the Day," above), so I'm afraid that if you don't know that name, that's harder to justify being outraged about. Anyway, both names are very fairly crossed, so hopefully if you didn't know either or both of those names, you got through OK and your enjoyment of the puzzle wasn't terribly diminished. Me, I was split. ASHANTI is an OK answer, but older, and I've seen the name before, whereas POST MALONE felt new and good (as with the ESPRESSO MARTINI, I don't partake of POST MALONE myself, as a rule, but I like when the puzzle lives, at least partially, in the Now).

There were only a few small parts of this puzzle that made me grumble. The first was really a "me" problem, in that I couldn't figure out BRS (6D: Abbr. in an apartment listing). Well, the fact that it's an ugly abbr. is a puzzle problem, but my fumbling it is a "me" problem. Admittedly, haven't looked for an apartment in over thirty years, but my brain wanted BDRM or BRM or something with an "M" in it. Maybe I'm confusing it with BSMT ("basement"), which an apartment listing probably wouldn't have. I guess BRS is a logical abbr. here. "B" = "bed," "R" = "room," makes sense. Still, there's no clue that's gonna make BRS good. Sometimes you need a small bit of gunk to hold your good long answers together. It's fine. The other "oof" for me came with the clue on DIGITAL ART (62A: What OpenAI's DALL-E creates). Any plug for generative AI, especially a plug for a specific company, is gonna diminish my solving enjoyment considerably. [Just imagine a long rant here about the dehumanizing / plagiaristic / environmentally disastrous aspects of generative AI, I'm too tired]. If y'all try to put DALL-E in a puzzle, I swear to god ....

Speed round:

• 3D: "Because of Winn-Dixie" narrator (OPAL) — this story / movie missed me entirely. I am aware of the title, but literally nothing else about it. For all I know, it's about a talking dog. Is it? I feel like there's a dog on the cover of the book. Yesssss! There is. Does it talk? Please say it talks. 

["I wuv you, wittle girl"]

• 36D: Carnival prize (TOY) — I wanted TAN (think Rio)
• 50D: Jewish noodle dish (KUGEL) — had the "K" and immediately wrote in KNISH; I knew it was wrong as I was doing it, but that didn't stop my fingers from typing the letters. My sincere apologies to the Jewish and culinary and Jewish culinary communities.
• 38D: Push one's buttons? (DIAL) — I love how wrong/right this answer is. That is, if you're literally DIALing, you don't push any buttons. We still use DIAL to refer to placing calls with a non-dial phone. Phones used to have literal DIALs kids. 9s took so long ... Things were better when they were clunky and slow and avocado green and not-at-all-mobile!
• 67A: Animated character who serves as an official Japanese tourism ambassador (HELLO KITTY) — always love seeing HELLO KITTY in the grid (this is its sixth appearance). Remind me of the story I've told here many times about when Andrea Carla Michaels told me Will Shortz rejected one of her puzzles that contained HELLO KITTY because he'd never heard of it and didn't think it would be well known, then shortly thereafter he saw an article about HELLO KITTY in an inflight magazine and told her what an amazing coincidence he thought that was. Anyway, clearly he came around, eventually. That story caused me to construct my first puzzle: a Norse gods puzzle (HELLO KITTY, "MOOD INDIGO," etc.), though I think I wasn't the first (or the last) to have that idea.
• 23D: First in a line of Egyptian pharaohs (RAMSES I) — I had the gist of it right but didn't figure on the "I" part and so tried to spell his name RAMESES

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...

"Bob's Burgers" daughter / MON 5-6-24 / It's good for "absolutely nothing," per a 1970 #1 hit / Many a phone call from a mysterious number / Red-and-white holiday costume / Groups of cups and saucers / Hershey candy bar made with toffee

Constructor: Malaika Handa

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "I'M ON A ROLL!" — the letters "IM" appear (in circles) on top of (i.e. directly above) some kind of "roll":

Theme answers:

• IMPS (12A: Mischievous little devils)
• SNAKE EYES (16A: Pair of ones, in dice) (a dice roll)
• RIMS (22A: Edges)
• CLASS ROSTER (29A: Sheet with student names) (a class roll)
• IMAGE (43A: Photograph, e.g.) 
• CINNAMON BUN (47A: Sticky breakfast treat) (a sweet roll)

Word of the Day: TIMOR-Leste (19A: ___-Leste, country in Southeast Asia) —

[The capital is DILI (4)—seems like potentially important crossword information]

East Timor, also known as Timor-Leste, officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is a country in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor - of which the western half is administered by Indonesia - the exclave of Oecusse on the island's north-western half, and the minor islands of Atauro and Jaco. Australia is the country's southern neighbour, separated by the Timor Sea. The country's size is 14,950 square kilometres (5,770 sq mi). Dili - on the north coast of Timor - is its capital and largest city.

East Timor was settled by waves of Austronesian and Papuan peoples, which are reflected in the country's diverse mix of cultures and languages reflecting its links to Southeast Asia and Melanesia despite its small area. East Timor came under Portuguese influence in the sixteenth century, remaining a Portuguese colony until 1975. Internal conflict preceded a unilateral declaration of independence and an Indonesian invasion and annexation. Resistance continued throughout Indonesian rule, and, in 1999, a United Nations–sponsored act of self-determination led to Indonesia relinquishing control of the territory. On 20 May 2002, as Timor-Leste, it became the first new sovereign state of the 21st century. That same year, relations with Indonesia were established and normalized, with Indonesia also supporting East Timor's accession into ASEAN. (wikipedia)

• • •

[Rosamond Smith = pen name of
Joyce Carol Oates!] 

A very easy Monday puzzle, with a revealer that absolutely did its job. I really should've figured out the revealer before I got there. Once the second set of circled squares turned out also to be "IM," I knew I was dealing with some kind of "I'M ON..." situation, but at every turn, my brain came up only with gibberish. I'M ON ... ONES? I'M ON ... A LIST? I'M ON ... SWEETS? That SNAKE EYES answer should've been a dead giveaway—of course it's a roll (of the dice), but it wasn't until the actual revealer showed its face that I realized what was going on. D'oh! Of course, roll! Maybe if the puzzle hadn't been so phenomenally easy to solve Downs-only, I might've had a little more time to mull it over, and I'M ON A ROLL would've come to me sooner. As it was, the puzzle put up almost no resistance—Downs-only is supposed to add challenge, but today, not so much. There was one big problem, right up front: SPAM. I don't think of actual old-fashioned telephone calls as SPAM—email, yes, texts, maybe, but not phone calls. I don't know why. My land line (why do we still have one of these???) often comes up with "SPAM RISK" as the caller, so of course phone calls can be SPAM. But it just didn't compute. So I had SCAM. And my backup answer was SHAM, lol. But SCAM left me with IMCS in the cross, and try as I might, I couldn't justify it. Couldn't think of any way that IMCS could be a thing. IMHS didn't work either. And that's when IMPS showed up. SPAM, sure. Gotta be SPAM. And it was. After that, only a handful of Downs gave me even the slightest pause, and none of those caused what you'd call actual trouble. A textbook Monday, though not as boring as "textbook Monday" sounds. It's a cute idea, neatly executed. The grid is smooth, if not scintillating. Good revealer, no cringe. I'm happy with this.

I liked the rhyming keyboard cluing on ONE and TWO, though I am now very conscious that ONE is not only in the clue for SNAKE EYES, but the very definition of SNAKE EYES, so while normally that kind of dupe wouldn't really register with me, today it does. I might've gone ODE / NODE instead of ONE / NONE just to get rid of it, but then I would've missed out on the ONE/TWO cluing thing, which was nice, and nobody is really gonna notice that ONE dupe anyway, so ... it's hard to complain. So consider this me noticing something, not complaining about it. OK? OK. I have never liked HEHE as a plausible laugh sound. It's HEE, that's the syllable. Maybe HEE-HEE or TEE-HEE. I'd also accept HEH if it's a kind of sneering laugh or chortle. But HEHE just doesn't wash. Never seen it anywhere but crosswords. But I got no other complaints. I am kinda curious about the cheater squares* in this one. The ones after HEHE / before SEAT make sense. I can see how a cheater in those places would've made it easier to fill those corners cleanly—you've got two long Downs right alongside one another, so why not take a little pressure off with a cheater if it makes the overall fill smoother. But the other cheaters, after LOS and before TWO, those are weirder. Small corners should be easy to fill. I see that the NW has the added thematic burden, with the "I'M" creating more theme density than you'd normally see in a small corner, so maybe that was what made the cheaters necessary. It's funny that an innocuous word like SKØR is actually anchoring three (3!) themers—two "IM"-containing words and SNAKE EYES. And adjacent ERIC does the same, running through SNAKE EYES, RIMS, and CLASS ROSTER. I guess the cheaters were a way of ensuring that the surrounding fill remained clean and uneventful, so that the theme could shine through. Again, unless you construct, you're not going to notice these tiny little technical details. I'm all for strategic cheaters if they really do make the difference between whistle-clean and even slightly rough fill.

As for the Downs-only adventure, after all the SCAM/SHAM/SPAM business, I had the following issues: I had PLOTZ for SWOON (30D: Faint from emotion); I balked at EVERY, since why would you say "each and EVERY" if they were in fact identical (33D: Each); I couldn't remember TINA's name for a few seconds (kept wanting LISA, but then remembering that was "The Simpsons," not "Bob's Burgers" (57D: "Bob's Burgers" daughter)); and CASH ... not sure why, but that didn't come to me immediately—I think I wanted a denomination, like TENS (54D: A.T.M. withdrawal). That's it. A relatively bumpless ride. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

*cheater squares = black squares that do not change the puzzle word count, called "cheaters" because they make filling the grid much easier for the constructor. 

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...