Polite rejection at a dance / MON 9-8-25 / 2013 movie about an A.I. crush / 4K screen precursor / Bakery display piece / Limited releases on Spotify, informally / Hit on a vape pen

Constructor: Margaret Seikel

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (solved Downs-only—real trouble with that NE section)

THEME: "I'M TAKEN" (39A: Polite rejection at a dance ... or a hint to each half of the answers to the starred clues) — two-word phrases where both words can follow "take a" (or "take the") in a familiar expression:

Theme answers:

• POWDER PUFF (16A: *Pad in a makeup kit)
• SEAT NUMBER (62A: *Assignment on a plane)
• CAKE STAND (10D: *Bakery display piece)
• FALL BREAK (33D: *Days off following October midterms)

Word of the Day: POP TAB (15D: Can-opening mechanism) —

[not found on merriam-webster.com or thefreedictionary.com or dictionary.com etc. There are "pull tabs," and there are "pop-tops," but POP TAB ... unaccounted for]

• • •

Somehow crossword constructors have convinced each other that POP TAB is a thing. Seven NYTXW appearances overall, four just since 2022. I'm guessing that the "tab" part of a pop-top can is what's meant by this "word," but I've never heard anyone actually use it and dictionaries are likewise giving a big shrug. I mean, it sounds like a thing, but I just don't think it's a thing. I start here because POP TAB was at the center of what ended up being the hardest part of the Downs-only solve for me. I had POP TOP for 15D: Can-opening mechanism—likely because that is, in fact, a thing—and that "wrong "-OP" meant that I guessed not one but two bad words for the Acrosses up there: ADROIT (!) instead of AD RATE (29A: $7 million for 30 seconds during the Super Bowl, say) and OPERA instead of OBAMA (36A: Winner of 2008 and 2012). I also just generally had trouble with CAKE STAND, and EMIT (I had MAIL) and ATV (thought it might be UTE). Disappointing to be so badly stalled by a non-word, and doubly disappointing to find out that ADROIT (a good word) was wrong and AD RATE (a horrible crosswordese phrase) was right. I now have a bitter, lifelong grudge against the "word" POP TAB. Not sure how I will avenge myself against this "word," but I'll find a way.

As for the theme, I haven't seen this theme type in a looooong time. You see "first words" or "last words"-type things with reasonable frequency, but the "both words" type is hard to pull off, and particularly hard without having to resort to some wonky, iffy, forced phrases. But today, all the phrases are just fine. Solid. Not a clunker in the bunch. I don't know that it's the most exciting Monday theme I've ever seen, but it works. The one inconsistency in the theme ends up being the thing I actually admire the most. I don't know if it was coincidence or planning, but CAKE STAND ends up being an interesting outlier. All the other words in the theme answers can follow "take a" in familiar phrases (take a powder, take a puff, take a break, etc.), but with both CAKE and STAND—and only with CAKE and STAND—does that phrasing not work.*** Instead, it's the definite article you need ("take the cake" and "take the stand") to make the phrases make sense. The anomaly would bug me, but since both words in the anomalous answer do the same thing ... I think of it as a feature (a little flourish), and not a bug.

Not a fan of ACTONE written out like that, especially since ACT I appears so often in the grid. Feels contrived. Also didn't love ROIL as the answer for 32D: Make annoyed. That answer riled me, but it did not ROIL me. You ROIL water (or the waters). I acknowledge that it can also mean "to upset someone emotionally," but I don't have to like it. My interest in vaping is zero, so I had no idea DAB was another word for toke, hit, whatever (35D: Hit on a vape pen). Thank god the crosses on that one were all easily inferrable. I stupidly (and hastily) wrote in YOUTH instead of YOUNG at 7D: The "Y" or Y.A. books. Otherwise, no real problems. Just that POP TAB-area debacle, and even that I was eventually able to work my way through. 

A few more things:

• 24D: Limited releases on Spotify, informally (EPS) — I think I don't understand how "Limited" is being used here. EPS contain more tracks than a single but fewer than an album. The "EP" stands for "extended play." What is "limited" about it? When you talk about "limited releases" in the world of music, you're usually talking about physical media (like vinyl) of which there is a limited number. But obviously on "Spotify," no such "limits" exist. "Limited release" actually has more currency in the film industry. Maybe the clue today was thinking "well, EPS are shorter than full albums, so in that way they are ... limited?" But I don't know.
• 45A: 4K screen precursor (HDTV) — oh, are 4K screens not hi-def. I keep putting off upgrading my TV (and Blu-ray player), mostly because so far I don't have any pressing need. "The blacks are really black, man!"  I'm sure they are. So far, I don't care.
• 2D: Higher than on the totem pole (ABOVE) — not sure why you had to bring a "totem pole" into this. [Higher than] works just fine.Maybe leave sacred objects out of your workplace metaphors. 

Totem poles are sacred objects used by many Indigenous and Alaska Native Nations of the Pacific Northwest to honor a deceased ancestor or share an important event. This idiom denigrates these sacred objects. Further, the idea that the lowest figure on the totem pole is the least important is also incorrect. In actuality, the designs on the bottom are often considered the most prestigious because they are the ones that will be seen at eye level. (Forbes.com)

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

***lol of course you can “take a stand”; I blame post-COVID vax fatigue for my not thinking of that. But my point still semi-stands, in that “take the” works with both elements of CAKE STAND. 

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Shaggy Scottish grazer / SAT 9-28-24 / Intercessor for the frequently forgetful / Military leader who helped capture Detroit in 1812 / Tucker who played drums for the Velvet Underground / Speckled steeds / Rustic respites / Pancake topper / Noncompetitive races / First name for the third second-in-command / Variable in Euler's polyhedron formula (V — E + F = 2) / Anonymous online handle, at times

Constructor: Margaret Seikel

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: dark MODE (45A: Dark ___) —

A light-on-dark color scheme, better known as dark mode, dark theme or night mode, is a color scheme that uses light-colored text, icons, and graphical user interface elements on a dark background. It is often discussed in terms of computer user interface design and web design. Many modern websites and operating systems offer the user an optional light-on-dark display mode.

Some users find dark mode displays more visually appealing, and claim that it can reduce eye strain. Displaying white at full brightness uses roughly six times as much power as pure black on a 2016 Google Pixel, which has an OLED display. However, conventional LED displays cannot benefit from reduced power consumption. Most modern operating systems support an optional light-on-dark color scheme. (wikipedia)

• • •

Quick write-up today, as I have an oddly full schedule, including a little crossword tournament up in Ithaca. But I often say "quick write-up" and it rarely comes to fruition, so let's see how this goes. This was a second day in a row where the marquee answers didn't seem quite up to snuff. I had a good reaction to REACTION GIF, but HIGHLAND COW ended up being oddly anticlimactic (17D: Shaggy Scottish grazer), as I got HIGHLAND easy enough, then just looked at those last three letters and thought "... is it just ... COW? Is that a thing?" It is! Anyhow, good enough answer, but the cow's got BACNE (i.e. back acne), so points off for repulsiveness (no offense to BACNE-havers, we've all been there, I presume, but ... not exactly an appealing bit of fill). And then there was SEED CAPITAL (14D: Angel's contribution), and this was the one that really killed the potentially creamy vibe of this triple-stack center. First, it's from the world of business/finance, and so the likelihood that it's going to be *scintillating* is ... low. And here's why—the self-importance. The inflated language. The businessspeakiness of it all. SEED ... CAPITAL? I had the SEED part, easy, but in my mind, the basic phrase here is "SEED money." Simple, direct, precise, common. A very in-the-language phrase. An angel (investor) provides seed money (i.e. initial funding) for any kind of business venture. But of course SEED MONEY wouldn't fit here—two letters short. So now I'm like "what are other words for 'money?' ugh, this is the last 'problem' my brain wants to be working on, now or ever: synonyms for 'money,' make it stop." I try FUNDING, but the crosses just don't work. So I just give up and work crosses. And the puzzle is so easy today that I get to CAPITAL eventually, but ... I mean, CAPITAL? La di dah, CAPITAL. It's just money, call it 'money.' This is like when everyone in business suddenly became an "entrepreneur." Oh, pardon me, do you have any Grey Poupon, Monsieur Entrepreneur?" You're a businessman and you deal with money. Those are the nice plain terms. SEED CAPITAL, bah. (LOL, the entry at wikipedia is "Seed money" (vindication!), but wikipedia goes on to say, "also known as seed funding or SEED CAPITAL." Oh, money, then funding, then capital? You Don't Say!)

So 2/3 of those middle Downs were reasonably pleasing, but all the other long stuff only really gets up to the level of "OK." There's nothing that really pops or surprises in any of the corners. The grid's not bad, or ugly, it's just a little blah, and the puzzle as a whole was very, very easy, so there wasn't even the joy of the struggle today. Clues were mostly transparent. I was shocked that AGATHA was right at 1A: First name in mysteries. It's the first thing I thought of, which, on a Saturday, I assume is going to be wrong-o! Not EXACTO! (Do people really say EXACTO, "informally" or otherwise? Fonzie says "Exactamundo!"—now that's informal. Baroque, elaborate, hypersyllabic, yes, but still informal. To me X-ACTO is a knife brand, and that's all it is.). Was surprised to just glide through this whole grid, from AGATHA on down, with very little resistance. I just fell down the puzzle like a stream down the hill, inexorably pulled by gravity rather than anything that felt like real effort on my part—corner to corner in no time at all:

Not that there weren't hiccups along the way. One of those came right out of the gate. I "confirmed" AGATHA by crossing it with the [Shaving brand], which, of course is ... ATRA! 😕 And then I confirmed that wrong answer with ASHE (another right answer)! Sigh. Really locked into a four-letter mistake there. I went further—so certain of ATRA that off the (wrong) "T," I wrote in TUNE-UPS for 13A: Noncompetitive races (FUN RUNS), and you can see how many answers I can "confirm" off of TUNE-UPS. So that's a monumental snafu, first thing ... and yet all it really took to get out was remembering AFTA exists. After that, whoosh, no more stuckness. As you can see from the midsolve screenshot, above, I had ONCE instead of ONLY (41A: And no more), so that made the NE corner a little harder to get into than the others, but the others were Monday/Tuesday level, so saying the NE was "harder" isn't saying much. I got AORTAS off the "A" (nevermind that it was the stupid Latin plural AORTAE) (18A: Vital carriers), and EXO / EXACTO was easy, and INNS was a gimme (22A: Rustic respites), so that corner was over quickly. Oh, earlier, I did stop and stare at -AT for 35A: Pancake topper. First thought: "OAT?" Second, more desperate thought: "FAT?" I guess you do, conventionally (certainly pictorially), put a PAT of butter on top of your pancakes, but oof, still awful as clued. "What would you like on your pancakes?" "PAT! PAT! Can I have PAT?!" "We ... we have butter ..." "PAAAAAAAT!" "OK, OK, take it easy ... Who's PAT?" 

Lightning round:

• 28D: First name for the third second-in-command (AARON) — ugh, presidential math, the worst. "OK, third president, so ... that's Jefferson, and then his veep was ... wait, was it really Burr? Huh, in all the Hamilton / "AARON Burr, sir" mania, I somehow forgot that very basic fact, LOL." Burr was VP during Jefferson's first term. For Jefferson's second term, it was George Clinton, who went on to be Madison's VP as well (?!), before ultimately abandoning the American political system altogether and joining Parliament:

• 11D: Intercessor for the frequently forgetful (ST. ANTHONY) — so he's the patron saint of people with memory problems. I did not know that. Kinda miffed that there's no abbr. indicator in the clue (as ST. is most def an abbr.), but on Saturdays especially I think they just throw basic decorum like that out the window.
• 37D: How some Hollywood relationships start (ON SCREEN) — really wanted this to be ON SET. We're talking about the actors, right? Not the fictional "relationships" in the movies themselves? I guess people who play lovers then become lovers, OK.  
• 24A: Variable in Euler's polyhedron formula (V — E + F = 2) (EDGES) — no idea. None. "Polyhedron" was probably supposed to help me think of a shape with EDGES, but it did not. That's OK. I expect to have things baffle me, especially on Saturday. Way less bothered by EDGES (something I simply didn't know) than by the CAPITAL in SEED CAPITAL (a pretentious stand-in for a more basic term)—I know, I know: "Rex, it's a real term, I'm so tired of your etc.," relax, business guy; you have your reaction, I'll have mine.

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Suffix with schnozz / TUE 5-9-23 / 1904 Nobelist who wrote Conditioned Reflexes / Independent divisions in corporate jargon / Apt name for a curator / Yes we can sloganeer of 2008 / Disney film set in imperial China / Mai singer with the 2018 hit Boo'd Up / Label for a post-makeover photo

Constructor: Margaret Seikel

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: two-fingers emoji (or ✌️)— clues all start with ✌️ and answers are things that can be represented by ✌️:

Theme answers:

• "TWO, PLEASE" (4D: ✌️, when ordering)
• PEACE SIGN (20A: ✌️, at an antiwar protest)
• BUNNY EARS (10D: ✌️, in a silly group photo)
• V FOR VICTORY (52A: ✌️, from Winston Churchill)

Word of the Day: "ODE to Autocorrect" (44A: "___ to Autocorrect" (Martha Silano poem)) —

Because it changes O’Hare to o hate,

o hate, o hate — over and over, no matter

how many times I retype it. O hate, like

an American tune, an American fable

where, yo, you can enter an o hate

bathroom, take a selfie in the mirror

cuz your sister wants to see the pockets

of your Great American Rhinestone Jeans.

Because, on a street called Viewpoint,

I get home becomes I get guns, off a road

on a mission to kill every squirrel-ish

pedestrian. Because he was packing,

concealed, threatening to use it, use

his hands or feet. My feet, iamb

of a son of a birch, of a brick chatting

with the devil, with God, with a listener

not listening. Because he’d gone bonnets,

his garden bounty a faded wine, his wife’s

linguine a longing for a golden ear,

so I took her to the botanical gardens

in my getaway car, to a fruit on a vine,

but the limes went lemur, the night to nonfat,

the clear to catastrophic. Because driving away

from the frog man croaking hypocrite,

heavenly went down like a melting hedge,

a gal gone hog-tied, a fish crying, a tiger-

tiger togetherness, flight or fucked,

a heart, stroked, racing to its vicarious

carousel, a fungus lashed to a beam gone

beleaguered. Because he will kill her,

that’s his plan: to kill us all. Can’t commit

or commute, can’t debone his breath,

can’t take his acute paranoia, chalk it up

to cute. Because this here’s a Josie

madhouse, a bedroom bedrock-locked.

Because Blvd morphed to Bled, spirit

summoned with a Ouija board. Because

soap holder went love hen, though love

had flown the Calycanthus

like the grilled portobellos messing

with his vowels. Please please, I pleaded

to the pleading day. Because prayer

is like a bread line, a penny for your

exploded mind. Because lots of logs

to you, ma, because so sorry went poem. (poetryfoundation.org)

• • •

Challenging for me, at first, since my software doesn't handle emojis, so my clue for "TWO, PLEASE" was just [, when ordering] and I sat there thinking "what in the world could a comma stand for when ordering?" But I quickly realized "oh, they're doing the emoji thing again" and I could pretty much infer from the TWO in "TWO, PLEASE" what emoji we were dealing with, and then PEACE SIGN came shortly thereafter and confirmed my suspicions. At that point, I could pretty much go ahead and fill in all the theme answers without hesitation. Well, at that point (very early) there were only two more to get, and I actually had trouble parsing V FOR VICTORY. I knew Churchill's "V" had to do with victory but I was looking for a slogan, like, I dunno, VICTORY OVER JAPAN or something like that. No matter, crosses took care of my confusion pretty easily. Are the black squares in the center of the grid supposed to be a visual approximation of the emoji? There's a vague "V"-like thing going on there, but it's more "Y" than "V" ... kinda slingshot-like. I hope it's not part of the concept and that I'm just seeing things, because if that's supposed to be a "V," yeesh. I'm kinda tepid on this whole concept. I guess the emoji is supposed to make it "fresh" but it's just a fairly easy, straightforward set of what that emoji can represent. Kinda ho-hum, thematically. The grid has an unusual look, with its mirror symmetry, and the theme answers appear in interesting places, so even if I don't buy the black-square "V," I do like the overall design. And the fill is much livelier than usual for a Tuesday. This wasn't really my jam, but it seems a well-made Tuesday puzzle nonetheless.

Speaking of things I don't buy: I don't buy the PLEASE part of "TWO, PLEASE." There is zero nada nothing about the emoji in question that indicates PLEASE. TWO, sure, PLEASE, come on, please, you fudged that in order to get the layout to work. I mean, it's an intricate layout, with overlapping themers, so it's a harmless fudge, but fudge it is, nonetheless. I also don't buy that YOGA is "quiet," LOL, have you ever been to a YOGA class? A zen retreat is quiet, YOGA sometimes features Om-ing and sometimes grunting and sometimes you are instructed to use that ujjayi breath, which is (per one YOGA DVD I own) "like Darth Vader," i.e. quite audible, so to this YOGA clue I say, quiet shmiet. (Also, UJJAYI ... put that in your wordlist and TOKE it). I also balked at BIG SPOON (8D: Implement for eating soup but probably not for stirring coffee), like "... huh, what SPOON is this? ... SOUP doesn't fit so ... BIG SPOON? BIG SPOON? Unless you are two humans spooning, there is no BIG SPOON, boo." But otherwise the fill was acceptable and even bouncy at times. Have you heard of PAVLOV's POPTART? Pretty famous experiment. Toaster goes down, salivating begins (He tried it with NACHOS but too messy). The whole west section is just roiling with multi-word fill, with I TOLD YA and OK BY ME sandwiching IT'S A GO, TOO BAD and OK BY ME. Very colloquial and sassy. I like it. The other side of the grid seems TAME(ST) by comparison. 

That's all, see you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Spirit of Oaxaca / FRI 2-24-23 / What musicians pluck on an mbira / Metaphor for fitting items into a moving van / Sources of psilocybin informally / Transport in the film Roman Holiday / Green cappuccino alternative / Question from a friendly interviewer / One of two penguin species endemic to Antarctica / Lizard with a third eye / Emphatic confirmation about oneself

Constructor: Margaret Seikel and Sophia Maymudes

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: LEAD climbing (2D: ___ climbing (discipline that debuted at the 2020 Olympics)) —

Lead climbing is a climbing style, predominantly used in rock climbing. In a roped party one climber has to take the lead while the other climbers follow. The lead climber wears a harness attached to a climbing rope, which in turn is connected to the other climbers below the lead climber. While ascending the route, the lead climber periodically connects the rope to protection equipment for safety in the event of a fall. This protection can consist of permanent bolts, to which the climber clips quickdraws, or removable protection such as nuts and cams. One of the climbers below the lead climber acts as a belayer. The belayer gives out rope while the lead climber ascends and also stops the rope when the lead climber falls or wants to rest.

• • •

[8D: One of two penguin species
endemic to Antarctica]

This is a solid puzzle, though it didn't provide the whooshy flow that I love to see on Friday. I think this may be due to the fact that there just aren't that many flow corridors (or "flow-idors" ... just kidding, that's not a term). That is, there are only four (!) answers of eight letters or longer, and they all run Across, in what is conventionally a themed-puzzle pattern. This had me thinking that the puzzle was themed at first, especially since the first two long Acrosses both get "?" clues, the way wacky theme clues might. I had a momentary "no, not a theme, not on my precious themeless Friday!" panic attack and so quickly jumped to the next long Across, saw it had a regular, non-"?" clue, and breathed a sigh of relief. Those long Acrosses just look theme-ish. But they aren't. I hope. If they are, hoo boy did I miss the theme. Let's just say there's no theme. "There's no theme." There, that's better. But back to my original point—the fill runs short today, with very few marquee answers, and the only marquee answer I really loved was SNEAKERHEAD (22A: One who collects just for kicks?) ("kicks" are another word for "shoes"). I want to love NO-MAKEUP MAKEUP, but I don't know what it is (13A: Discreet look?). Is it make-up that is supposed to make you look like you aren't wearing any? If so, that ... I just ... I don't get it. It's make-up still, right? Is it just that you don't look like a clown? Or are there just no obvious non-face elements (like blue, or glitter)? I've never dated / married people who wore much make-up, so you got me here. OK, google tells me:

“No-makeup makeup is makeup that you wear that just slightly enhances your features in a very natural and minimal way,” says makeup artist Lindsay Katsuk.

I wrote in NO MAKE-UP MONDAY. Seemed legit. "I didn't know that was a thing. Cool!" Alas, no. To be very clear, I'm not mad at this answer at all. It seems original and others will recognize it and enjoy it. It's just one of those answers that missed me. I do like its fearless repetition of MAKE-UP. Bold. 

["Put on a little make-up, make-up..."]

Wish I could like anything about CONTENT CREATOR, but it just reminds me of the reduction of everything online to the undifferentiated sludge of "content." Gotta fill that feed, get those posts up, go go go. Distraction arms race leading god knows where. "Content" has a dystopian corporate vagueness that makes my skin crawl. But there's no doubting that CONTENT CREATOR is a type of ... person. And it's an original answer. It's just that seeing it doesn't make me feel good feelings. But again, not all puzzles are for me, and that's good. Probably.

Never heard of LEAD climbing and wasn't sure if it was the "lead" as in "leader" or "lead" as in "lead balloon." "Why are they climbing [the element] LEAD?" I kind of briefly wondered. I also balked and rebalked at TINE (20A: What musicians pluck on an mbira). I think VINE and TONE were in there before TINE, which I stared at, thinking it must be wrong. I'm really Really glad I have seen ADÉLIE penguins before, because that "I" ... if I were a more novice solver, I might believe TONE or TUNE there. I mean, they're both musical—more (apparently) musical than TINE, that's for sure. Mbira are a "family" of Zimbabwean musical instruments, and each instrument consists of a "wooden board (often fitted with a resonator) with attached staggered metal TINEs" (wikipedia). Looking forward to seeing MBIRA in some future, let's say, Saturday grid. 

I didn't encounter much difficulty beyond the difficulties already mentioned. I could not get ROBYN from that particular clue (33D: One-named singer with the 1997 hit "Show Me Love") both because I don't know that song (I didn't discover ROBYN til sometime around 2010, I wanna say), and because if you say "hey, do you know that song from the '90s called "Show Me Love?" my response is gonna be "hell yes I do ... and it goes a little something like this":

[How is this "Show Me Love" also by a ROB(I)N!?!?!]

GAY ICON and POP STAR are fine answers, but I've seen them an awful lot now, and since they are the longest fill the grid has outside of the Big Four, their lack of freshness costs the puzzle some much-needed sizzle. Ooh, forgot to mention that I do love "I SURE AM!" (5D: Emphatic confirmation about oneself). I like the brash confidence, as well as the genuine originality.  And I like BALL HOG (31D: One unlikely to make a pass). And I really love MEZCAL (37D: Spirit of Oaxaca). Maybe too much. But we may be talking about my life and not the grid now, so let's wrap things up. Good puzzle, out of my wheelhouse, that's OK! See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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TV political drama known for its walk and talks / TUE 1-3-23 / Bird in Tootsie Pop commercials since 1970 / Epitome of slipperiness / Multitasker's browserful

Constructor: Margaret Seikel 

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: "MOVE FAST AND / BREAK THINGS" (17A: With 55-Across, modern principle of start-ups) — "THING" is "broken" in two, with "TH" on one side and "ING" on the other side of three long theme answers ... I confess I have no idea how the "MOVE FAST" part factors in:
Theme answers:

• "THANKS FOR COMING" (23A: Host's farewell phrase)
• "THE WEST WING" (34A: TV political drama known for its "walk and talks")
• "THAT'S SURPRISING" (48A: "Never would have guessed it!")

Word of the Day: MEG CABOT (3D: "The Princess Diaries" author) —

 

Meggin Patricia Cabot (born February 1, 1967) is an American novelist. She has written and published over 50 novels of young adult and adult fiction and is best known for her young adult series Princess Diaries, which was later adapted by Walt Disney Pictures into two feature films. Cabot has been the recipient of numerous book awards, including the New York Public Library Books for the Teen Age, the American Library Association Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers, the Tennessee Volunteer State TASL Book Award, the Book Sense Pick, the Evergreen Young Adult Book Award, the IRA/CBC Young Adult Choice, and many others. She has also had number-one New York Times bestsellers, and more than 25 million copies of her books are in print across the world. (wikipedia)

• • •

So I am going to move now from blaming my possible blogging impairment on jet lag to blaming it on illness (and also still somehow jet lag). I was on the couch all day watching movies while my wife was in bed all day just sleeping with the cat (who was Extremely happy with this development, thank you very much—nowhere he'd rather be than curled up next to "The Lady," which is what he, that is I-doing-his-voice, calls Penelope). It is currently 11-something PM and I just *woke up* from my latest short / fitful sleeping episode. The worst is over, but oof, sleep, it is not on schedule. Anyway, my solving skills seem to be still intact, but I feel like I must have missed something with the theme, as I cannot find the "MOVE FAST" component and I'm sure there must be one. Or else, I feel there should be one and so I'm stubbornly still searching. The lack of such a component, combined with my inherent revulsion at the revealer phrase (tech bro'y sloganeering can go jump in the sea), meant that I didn't really groove on this one. Its pop culture universe is also (largely) not my pop culture universe, but that's just ... the breaks (boom, big pun, even in sickness, still got it!). Don't know anything about "The Princess Diaries" so 2x "Princess Diaries" = 2x = [shrug] (22A: ___ Thermopolis, Anne Hathaway's role in "The Princess Diaries" => MIA). MEG CABOT's name does ring a bell, though—I've probably had her name in my eyeline countless times at the bookstore). Never did take to "THE WEST WING," but the whole Aaron Sorkin "walk and talk" thing, I have definitely heard of (I was a big fan of Sorkin's "Sports Night," which probably shares some dialogue characteristics with "West Wing"). I have read Sally ROONEY, though (61A: "Normal People" author Sally), and anyway, it's not like you needed to be Very familiar with any of these pop culture answers to solve the puzzle fairly quickly. My issues with the puzzle are, as I say, primarily thematic, in that it seems incompletely executed, and that revealer phrase, blargh.

It's weird that puzzleworld wants to perpetrate "I WAS HAD" on the world when my ear always wants it to be "I'VE BEEN HAD!" Now, "I WAS HAD" returns the most Google hits, but you get a whole bunch of odd hits for grammar sites, instances where there's a comma between "was" and "had," instances where the relevant phrase is something like "who I was had nothing to do with it." I think the phrase I'm *really* hearing in my head is "WE WAS ROBBED!" but I watch a lot of gangster films, which might explain why I hear what I hear. On the symmetrical side of the grid, "WANNA GO" feels perfect. Fresh, current, terse, bouncy, good. "SEEMS OK" is in the same general category. As for difficulty, there wasn't much today, but it didn't seem unusually easy, either, for a Tuesday. I had JET before SST (the retired FRANCo-British supersonic crosswordese that time forgot!) (47D: Concorde, e.g., in brief), but no other mistakes / write-overs. I am currently amusing myself by reading a couple of rows in this grid as if the answers went together. I'm particularly intrigued by the existential question "IS LAM LAM?" and by the potential animated series "EEL TEEN" or "TEEN EWE." I'm imagining a juvenile delinquent young sheep just hanging out under a street light, smoking, glaring defiantly at me as EEL TEEN rides up on his motorcycle and does the same. I would watch a show about the escapades of these two, for sure. Sorkin, call me.

See you tomorrow, everyone.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Indoor bouldering locale / MON 9-26-22 / Cosmetic reapplication / Cassette submitted to a record label / Male equivalent of a she-shed / Room by the foyer, often

Constructor: Margaret Seikel

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (***for a Monday***)

THEME: HANG IN THERE (58A: "Stick with it!" ... or a hint to the answers to the starred clues) — places about which you might say, "yeah, you can (literally) hang in there":
Theme answers:

• CLIMBING GYM (17A: *Indoor bouldering locale)
• COAT CLOSET (11D: *Room by the foyer, often)
• ART GALLERY (27D: *Place to buy a painting)
• MAN CAVE (37A: *Male equivalent of a she-shed)

Word of the Day: RAGLAN (40A: Kind of sleeve that extends to the collar) —

 

A raglan sleeve is a sleeve that extends in one piece fully to the collar, leaving a diagonal seam from underarm to collarbone.

It is named after Lord Raglan, the 1st Baron Raglan, who is said to have worn a coat with this style of sleeve after the loss of his arm in the Battle of Waterloo.

The raglan mid-length sleeve is a popular undergarment (worn under the jersey) for baseball teams in MLB. (wikipedia) 

• • •

Is a closet a "room"???? How big are y'all's closets, anyway? Never in my life would've thought to call a closet a "room," but I guess it's got four walls and a door, so maybe you can lawyer your way into a justification. Anyway, "room" definitions aside, I thought this was a remarkably clever theme. Take a familiar phrase, do some wordplay, shazam! If you can pull it off, it's golden. Gotta get a themer set that works *and* that fits symmetrically, but if you can tick all those boxes, you're good to go. You're not done though. You still gotta build a grid that you can fill cleanly, and then, you know, fill it cleanly. And this one's as clean as a whistle. That's two exceptional Monday puzzles in a row. Good stuff. True, I tend to blow through the Monday too quickly to notice whatever the heck is going on with the theme, and that was true today as well, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate the gimmick once I'm done and properly paying attention. I've never heard of a CLIMBING GYM. Really really wanted CLIMBING WALL, which I've definitely heard of. But apparently they have whole "gyms" filled with things to "climb," who knew? Well, besides a bunch of you, I mean. The COAT part of COAT CLOSET feels arbitrary, but you gotta make your answers symmetrical somehow, and if COAT works, it works. HALL CLOSET feels like more of a thing to me, but maybe the idea is that a COAT CLOSET really brings home the idea of "hanging." Whereas who knows what you've got in your HALL CLOSET!? Shoes, board games, yoga mats, bowling balls ... you can't hang those! 

MAN CAVE remains one of those gendered things that makes my skin crawl a little. Like, what does your little playroom have to do with your manhood, exactly? And she-shed is somehow worse? Like, did you really need an equivalent concept? Women should have caves and men should have sheds and people should have their own rooms if they want, whatever, gendering rooms is bizarre. Not sure I'd've gone with INS when "IN" is already "IN" the revealer, but two-letter prepositions are pretty innocuous, as dupes go. It was just BISCUIT Week on "The Great British Bake-Off," so the British word for "cookie" was fresh on my mind. I was just watching "The Rockford Files" before I came upstairs to solve, so that's probably how I would've clued (James) GARNER if I'd been given the chance. There's not much room for stand-out non-theme fill today, but as I say, the grid is so smooth it hardly matters, and anyway BOLSTER and DEMOTAPE and DOGSAT are plenty nice. No real sticking points today besides the theme answer stuff I already mentioned. Oh, "PINCH ME!," forgot to mention that answer—also a good one. I would say a PEAR is very-much-not round, so that clue was weird (56D: Not-quite-round fruit), but I still got the answer easy enough. OK, PEACE out, see you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. Congrats to constructor and wonderful human being Brooke Husic on completing the Berlin MARATHON yesterday! 

i'm not a huge personal update sharer but 4.5 yrs ago an orthopedic surgeon told me i might never run again b/c of an injury, last year i had two (2) foot surgeries for that same injury, and today i ran the berlin marathon (WR courtesy his GOATness @EliudKipchoge) ❤️‍🩹 pic.twitter.com/W83MYXv7uI

— alexandra ladee (@xandraladee) September 25, 2022

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