Side effect after a BBQ meal, informally / SAT 12-6-25 / Having a good aura, in slang / Classic arcade game with a pyramid / Ratty is one in "The Wind in the Willows" / Portrayer of Glinda in 2024's "Wicked," to fans / Singer with the top 10 albums "Crash" and "Brat" / Warning preceding some "madness" during March Madness / Source of rhythm in electronic music / Title film character with a "lucky fin" / Chinese surname transliterating "Zuo"

Constructor: Marshal Herrmann

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: RENÉ Coty (20D: Former French president ___ Coty) —

Gustave Jules René Coty (French: [ʁəne kɔti]; 20 March 1882 – 22 November 1962) was President of France from 1954 to 1959. He was the second and last president of the Fourth French Republic. [...] As President of the Republic, Coty was even less active than his predecessor in trying to influence policy. His presidency was troubled by the political instability of the Fourth Republic and the Algerian question. With the deepening of the crisis in 1958, on 29 May of that year, President Coty appealed to Charles de Gaulle, the "most illustrious of Frenchmen" to become the last Prime Minister of the Fourth Republic. Coty had threatened to resign if de Gaulle's appointment was not approved by the National Assembly. // De Gaulle drafted a new constitution, and on 28 September, a referendum took place in which 79.2% of those who voted supported the proposals, which led to the Fifth Republic. De Gaulle was elected as president of the new republic by parliament in December, and succeeded Coty on 9 January 1959. Coty was a member of the Constitutional Council from 1959 until his death in 1962. (wikipedia)

• • •

As a RATER (😒), I nearly took this thing down to 3-and-a-half stars just for that "Q" line. There's something about showy tricks that really takes me out of the puzzle. Makes me roll my eyes and kind of groan disappointedly. A great puzzle doesn't need such cheap frippery, and this puzzle was indeed a great puzzle to that point. There's no harm done by the "Q"s—they're handled very cleanly. If the grid were peppered with Qs and Js and other Scrabbly letters and still came out clean, that would be fine. But something lining up all those ducks in a row (all those Q-uacks) felt disappointing—the kind of superficial "razzle-dazzle" that a great puzzle simply doesn't need. Other people might fault this puzzle for having "too much pop culture" or being "too slangy"—we all have our peeves. But I really enjoyed the vibes of this one. The VIBEY vibes. The marquee fill was crushing it, every corner, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3 ... really impressive. And the short stuff, the glue, was relatively inoffensive. ELO OLEO TSO ARI ICEE BE-IN etc. are all doing what they're supposed to do—holding good stuff together and staying spread out. The craftsmanship here is really incredible ... which is why that "Q" flourish seems so garish. You have something elegant on your hands, don't ruin it with unnecessary and gaudy decoration. Not in a themeless puzzle. Doesn't need it. Doesn't want it.

This didn't start out terribly promising, as I struggled to get toeholds, which were all scattered and short and ineffective. The puzzle didn't feel like much of anything at this point ...

... but then those toeholds started to pay off as I got real traction and the longer answers really opened up. Exploded, really, in popcorny bursts of goodness ...

"THAT'S A WRAP," "I AM SO THERE!," "RUMOR HAS IT..."—That is a lovely colonnade of colloquialness [see ... alliteration ... there's another cheap, superficial gimmick ... distracting ... I have to decide "is it worth it?" And I don't think it is ... but I'm gonna leave it here as an object lesson, a warning against gestures and flourishes that call excessive attention to themselves]. And the stacks and colonnades keep coming, all the way around the grid, in every corner. No let up. No throwaways, no filler—no scrubs!

I think the SW corner was the pinnacle of the puzzle for me. I was having a decent time to that point, but was not yet feeling impressed. Usually, while I'm solving, I'm just thinking about solving—that is, I'm not really in "appreciation" mode, I'm in "get through it" mode. Power mode. Speedsolver mode. So if I actually feel impressed mid-solve, that means the puzzle has really broken through and penetrated my game-mode brain, and that is quite something. That's the high I'm chasing all the time. I love that moment when I say (often aloud) to myself, "oh, that's good." Sometimes happily, sometimes grudgingly (if it took me a while to get, for instance), but however I get there, it's always good to get there, and that SW corner really got me there. MEAT SWEATS in particular—that was the first of the long answers to fall down there, and I built the stack from there, ending with a very appropriate "HOLY SMOKES!" I like that "HOLY SMOKES!" conveys my feelings about the wonders of that corner, and also contains the word "smokes," which plays off of "MEAT" really nicely. The rest of the puzzle was solid—above average, for sure. But that SW corner ... I'll be feeling that SW corner all day. Not very often that one recollects MEAT SWEATS with any degree of fondness, but HOLY SMOKES, I gotta tell ya, CHUM, that was a good corner.

The puzzle could've stood to be harder. Quite a bit harder, actually. After I got going on this one, I didn't encounter any significant hold-ups on my way to the finish. I haven't read (or had read to me) The Wind in the Willows since I was a child, so Ratty ... (33D: Ratty is one in "The Wind in the Willows") ...  I assumed (correctly) that he was rat-like, rattish, rodenticious, but that still didn't help me figure out exactly what word was supposed to follow WATER. When "mouse" and "rat" didn't fit, I was plum out of ideas. Actually, no—I remember now: I had WATERMOLE in there for a bit! Man, thank god MIBEY looked so terribly, awfully wrong at 49A: Having a good aura, in slang (VIBEY). Since the answer was "slang," it would've been easy enough to convince myself that I just didn't know the slang in question. "Oh, yeah, MIBEY, that's what middle-schoolers are saying now. 6-7 is out, MIBEY is in. Oxford's making it their Word of the Year, didn't you know?" [Oxford's actual Word of the Year this year: rage bait]. But thankfully my "check your damned crosses" instinct is pretty strong when something smells fishy, so the MOLE became a VOLE. I know what VOLEs are. When we had dogs, I would set them loose to chase the "VOLEs and stoats and weasels" (much more storybook-sounding than the banal reality of squirrels and chipmunks). But WATERVOLE, that's a new one to me. Or newish. Again, pretty sure I read The Wind in the Willows at some point. Just not recently.

Bullets:

• 8D: Singer with the top 10 albums "Crash" and "Brat" (CHARLI XCX) — you are not allowed to say you've never heard of CHARLI XCX because if you have been solving regularly for more than a month or so, you definitely have heard of her. Here we go: October 17, 2025. She's a big pop star. If you go to the movies at all and have seen the trailers for next year's Wuthering Heights, you've seen her name—she's doing the music for that movie and boy do they want people to know it. Rare that you see a songwriter / composer / musician credited in the trailer. ("Original songs by CHARLI XCX")

• 34A: Director Jon M. ___ (CHU) — I'm not much for cross-referenced clues, but it's a little weird that he wasn't tied to the ARI clue (38A: Portrayer of Glinda in 2024's "Wicked," to fans), since he directed the dang movie in question. Also, weird that they didn't give CHU an identifying movie at all, or update the movie in the ARI clue to Wicked: For Good, which CHU also directed, and which is in theaters now, breaking all kinds of box office records.
• 56A: Warning preceding some "madness" during March Madness (UPSET ALERT) — this is very niche, but I still love it. And even if you don't pay attention to college basketball, the answer is ultimately inferable. 
• 9D: Tennis duo? (ENS) — a very basic "letteral" clue. The "duo" are the pair of letters in the word "Tennis," i.e. the "n"s (ENS). 
• 29D: Yoga pants and such (ACTIVEWEAR) — anyone write in ATHLEISURE there? It fits. I mean, it really fits. I had some crosses and so didn't make this particular mistake, but I sympathize with anyone who did.

That's all. See you next time. And keep those 🌲🐈Holiday Pet Pics🐕🌲 coming (rexparker at icloud dot com). I'll start the pet picture parade next Thursday. Here's a preview—a picture that seems particularly appropriate for today's puzzle:

[Eevee and Biscuit—looking nice, thinking naughty]
[thanks, Linda!]

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Soul singer Adams / TUE 9-9-25 / Narco nabber / Crack expert? / Cheese town in northern Holland / Some "Beowulf" characters / What might precede Phone, commercially?

Constructor: Marshal Herrmann

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: VOWEL (35A: Purchase on "Wheel of Fortune" ... or every other letter of this puzzle's grid) — all answers alternate between vowels and consonants

Theme answers:

• all of them

Word of the Day: OLETA Adams (47D: Soul singer Adams) —

Oleta Angela Adams (born May 4, 1953) is an American singer, pianist, and songwriter. She found limited success during the early 1980s, before gaining fame via her contributions to Tears for Fears' international chart-topping album The Seeds of Love (1989). Her albums Circle of One (1991) and Evolution (1993) were top 10 hits in the UK; the former yielded a Grammy-nominated cover of Brenda Russell's "Get Here", which was a top 5 hit in both the UK and the U.S. Adams has been nominated for four Grammy Awards, as well as two Soul Train Music Awards. [...] In June 1985, while performing at the Peppercorn Duck Club in the Hyatt Hotel in Kansas City, Adams was heard by Ian Stanley (keyboardist of the British band Tears for Fears) while they were on a two-night stopover in Kansas City midway through their "Big Chair Tour". The next night Stanley, Curt Smith and Roland Orzabal had dinner at the club where Adams was again performing, and they collectively decided that they would approach her with an offer for her to work on their next album, The Seeds of Love. Adams accepted the offer, and two years later Orzabal and Smith got in contact with her again to invite her to join the band as a singer and pianist. // In 1989, the album was released and the single "Woman in Chains", sung as a duet by Adams and Orzabal and with Manu Katche & Phil Collins on drums, became her first hit.^[2] Adams embarked on a world tour with Tears for Fears in 1990, performing by herself as the supporting artist at the start of each show, and remaining onstage throughout the Tears for Fears set where she would provide piano and vocals. [...] Following her work with Tears for Fears, Adams was offered a recording contract by their label, Fontana Records, and restarted her solo career in 1990.^[5] After meeting a number of producers, she worked with Roland Orzabal, who co-produced her new album, Circle of One. The album received acclaim, and eventually peaked at No. 1 in the UK Albums Chart in 1991, after she scored her biggest hit to date with a Grammy-nominated cover of Brenda Russell's "Get Here". The song reached the UK and U.S. top 5 and became popular during the 1991 Gulf War conflict, as families of deployed troops in the region embraced the tune as a theme song.

• • •

This was a breezy, easy themeless. I genuinely believed, toward the end of the solve, that the NYTXW had decided to experiment with early-week themelesses, and this was their first effort. I missed the revealer because all I read was [Purchase on "Wheel of Fortune"...]—that's all I needed. I read as much of the clue as I need to get the answer, and if the first few words give it to me, then that's all I'll read. And that's how I finished the puzzle—believing there to be no theme. I was honestly ... I wouldn't say "happy," but "content." Maybe "reconciled" is the better answer. I don't particularly want there to be early-week themelesses (I'm fine with the current set-up, where such puzzles appear only on Fri and Sat). But today's puzzle felt smooth, if not particularly exciting. Could've used some more marquee fill, but overall it was pleasant enough. I've had worse Tuesday experiences, but that's because there's always a theme to botch on Tuesdays. Can't botch what you don't even attempt. So when I was done I felt this sense that the Future was upon me—that the puzzle wasn't just getting easier overall, eliminating most real challenge in favor of a kind of bland doability, all in the name of commerce (i.e. making it more appealing to a whole class of people who want their games light-hearted and bite-sized). The old-school crossword is probably not long for this world. Instead of the backbone of the "Games" section (the original "game," in fact), it will become increasingly marginal. Maybe they'll test Games subscriptions without the traditional crossword, and when that goes well, phase that crossword out entirely. Not soon, but someday. Probably makes sense, capitalism-wise. Anyway, we aren't there yet. I scanned the clues looking for something that seemed like a revealer and there it was: VOWEL. That's it: VOWEL. No snappy phrase, no aha, wow, surprise. Just ... VOWEL. And what is VOWEL doing? Appearing! In every other square! I'm using exclamation points! Facetiously! Enjoy!

See the thing is, this is what I imagine puzzles will look like when they are entirely written by A.I. All you gotta do here is write some code that winnows your massive wordlist down to Only Words That Alternative Vowel/Consonant. Then feed *that* wordlist to your construction software and basically make an easy themeless. The theme "trick" isn't one. It's just a matter of hiding answers that don't fit the pattern from your construction software. I'm sure it's harder to build a puzzle that way than to build one with your full wordlist in play.  But with a simple grid like this, not much harder. You've got the 15s up top and below, which is probably where you'd start. But the puzzle is otherwise mostly loaded with 3-4-5s. A couple longer Downs, a couple 6s and 7s, but ... meh. In the end, it's really just a lackluster themeless. If the revealer had been at all clever or interesting, if there had been more to VOWEL than just ... existing, maybe this puzzle could've been something. As is the revealer could just as easily have been CONSONANT ... I mean, it couldn't, because CONSONANT doesn't alternate consonant/vowel all the way through ... but in spirit, it could have. The "gimmick" is purely structural, which is the kind of thing that computers can handle real well. So welcome to a vision of your A.I.-authored future. It's very so-so.

Nothing to say about this one, from a fill perspective. It's fine. It's passable. It's wallpaper. MORE TO COME LATER feels forced. Redundant, to be specific. When else is "MORE" supposed to "COME"? Earlier? ON A SEPARATE NOTE also feels a little wobbly, although I acknowledge it's a thing people sometimes say. There are just so many "On a ___ note"s that this one didn't particularly leap to mind. I thought maybe DIFFERENT or ANOTHER. But there's nothing *wrong* with the phrase. It's fine. The grid is fine. Wearyingly fine. Moving on.

Bullets:

• 18A: Chicago's ___ B. Wells Drive (IDA) — One of several IDAs for whom my cat was named. I still call her "IDA B." from time to time. And "IDA MAE." And "Missy" and "Missus" and "Miss IDA" and "Miss Priss" and "Baby" and "Get out of the kitchen I'm cooking here you're going to kill me!"
• 58A: First, second or third (BASE) — I wanted RATE at first. A truly boring error. But there were hardly any errors or near-errors to come by today, so you get whatever you get, sorry.

• 1D: Crack expert? (COMIC) — probably the hardest clue in the puzzle, right up front. [Crack expert] is redundant as a surface-level phrase. "Crack" means "expert." So I thought "oh, the puzzle is referring to crack cocaine, maybe the answer is ... NARCO?" But no, a "crack" is a "joke" and the joke expert would (presumably) be the COMIC.
• 5D: Who rapped "I've created a monster, 'cause nobody wants to see Marshall no more" (EMINEM) — This is not a "monster," Marshal. It's an easy themeless. Not sure the winky little self-reference here is earned. 
• 35D: Narco nabber (VICE COP) — ah, there's "Narco." Not the [Crack expert?], but the dude being nabbed by the VICE COP. I'm not a big fan of the police state we've increasingly got going in this country, but I do like VICE COP as an answer. It's got a sizzle that the rest of the grid mostly lacks.

That's all. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Things that scratch a scratching post / TUE 1-16-24 / Nonstick cookware brand / If this is exhausted, all is lost / Bit of equipment for a skier or trekker / Movie theater eponym / First pope in a line of 13

Constructor: Marshal Herrmann

Relative difficulty: Hard



THEME: ONE L — Every answer in the grid has the letter L appear in it exactly one time.

Word of the Day: SEA GLASS (28A: Material for some jewelry at a surf shop) —

Sea glass are naturally weathered pieces of glass, which often have the appearance of tumbled stones. Sea glass is physically and chemically weathered glass found on beaches along bodies of salt water. These weathering processes produce natural frosted glass.^[1] Sea glass is used for decoration, most commonly in jewellery. "Beach glass" comes from fresh water and is often less frosted in appearance than sea glass. Sea glass takes 20–40 years, and sometimes as much as 100–200 years, to acquire its characteristic texture and shape.^[2] It is also colloquially referred to as drift glass from the longshore drift process that forms the smooth edges. In practice, the two terms are used interchangeably.

• • •

Theme answers:

• ONE L (62A: First-year law student ... or what every answer in this puzzle has exactly)

Hello friends! It's Rafa here subbing in for Rex today. Hope you've all had a happy and healthy start to the new year. (I say this every year, of course, but *how* is it already 2024?! That means 1994 was ... 30??? ... years ago?! I will continue to choose not to believe that!)

Onto the puzzle! I expect this one to be pretty polarizing. I've seen a lot of "stunt" puzzles before ... only using one vowel, being limited to only some letters of the alphabet, every clue starts with some letter, etc., etc. The issue is that while these can be hard to construct, they are often not very fun to solve! And why do we make crosswords if not for them to be fun to solve? This one wasn't particularly egregious to me, but I did notice something was amiss in the fill before getting to the revealer. OLAF / LOEW / LEO I in one corner is a pileup of hard-ish propers for a Tuesday, as well as things like TFAL (especially crossing LIFE as clued!), BALT, ELEV strewn around. Nothing terrible, individually ... but it adds up.

Some sneaky avocado in these BLTS!

It was cool to hit the revealer, though, and finally see it. I was pretty impressed by the construction. Did it make me enjoy the solve overall in hindsight? I think so! But I'm genuinely not sure. It would have been amazing if the clues had also had one L each. That would have blown my mind.

Pretty OPAL

Because of the constraints of this theme, the grid has a lot of 4s and 5s and not too many long answers. But a lot of the 8s were really great. I really like RED FLAGS (as fill, and, I guess, in people I date, given my track record), GOLF CART, CULT HERO, FIELD DAY, BOOTLEGS. I'd never heard of SELF FIVE but that's a funny concept and answer.

Look at that suburban SPRAWL. Bad!

One other reason this puzzle was satisfying is the crosswordese-to-revealer pipeline. As a frequent solver, it's unusual to see a glue-y answer like ONE L carry such weight like this. Like, wow, someone finally can appreciate ONE L beyond giving it a small eye roll (does anyone outside of crosswords actually spell out "one L" instead of 1L?) and moving on. ERA puzzle when? ORE puzzle when? OREO puzzle when??

Bullets:

• BLOG (1A: Publication that usually has only one contributor) — Funny that the puzzle opened with this clue on a day I was guest blogging!
• ELEV (56A: About 5,280 ft., for Denver) — I wonder how they measure elevation for a city. Is it an average of the elevation over every point within city limits? Is it the elevation at the geographic center of the city? Is there some special location where the official elevation is measured? I could certainly look this up very easily, but it's more fun to just ask on here!
• GOLF CART (4D: Green vehicle?) — Fun clue! Good misdirect to green-as-in-eco instead of green-as-in-golf.
• OLAF (46D: German chancellor Scholz) — Who will be the first to put French prime minister ATTAL in a grid?

Signed, Rafa

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