Title bestowed by a sultan / FRI 10-7-22 / Bagful purchased at a nursery / Car modified into the Monkeemobile / Priestess of Hecate / Coffee-growing region on the Big Island / Lead-in to a Southern Ville / Animal that the Aztecs called ayotochtli or turtle-rabbit

Constructor: Mary Lou Guizzo and Jeff Chen

Relative difficulty: Weirdly Challenging

THEME: "KETANJI / BROWN / JACKSON" (33A: With 38- and 43-Across, history-making SCOTUS appointee — it's actually themeless, but Justice Jackson takes up the whole middle of the puzzle, and is *by far* the best thing in the grid  

Word of the Day: BOGO (37A: Sale incentive, informally) —

: a sales promotion in which an item is offered free or at a reduced price when another item is purchased at full price (merriam-webster.com) [short for "buy one, get one"]

• • •

Wonderful to see that KETANJI / BROWN / JACKSON stack in the middle of the puzzle today, but a lot less wonderful to see almost everything else in this grid. I do not understand why this puzzle was accepted beyond the very cool Supreme Court Justice name arrangement. The average New Yorker puzzle absolutely torches this puzzle at the level of overall grid quality. If you are going to pay tribute to this "history-making SCOTUS appointee," you should either build an actual theme around her, or else drop her into the middle of an absolutely Fire grid. She deserves better than this, is what I'm saying. The only thing besides her name that took the needle into "happy" territory today was the clue on MAC 'N' CHEESE (26D: Comfort food with shortening?). Good answer, great clue—nice misdirection there with "shortening" (which here refers to the "shortening," i.e. abbreviation, MAC ... and 'N', I guess). In all other parts of the grid, I was either COOLLY filling in boxes or else grimacing at yet another cutesy clue. Puzzle: "How fast does a ___ have to run before it looks gray?" Me: "... HOUND?" Puzzle: [4D: One in a galley]. Me: "No idea." Puzzle later: [6D: One in a galley]. Me again: "We've been over this." And then the puzzle pulls the identical clue gimmick *again* with STALE / HUMID? It all feels like distraction from the fact that there are no marquee answers in this thing besides Justice Jackson. KONA COAST and EGGBEATER are fine, as is HANGER-ON, but not much else here is worth the price of admission. 

["Am I ... gray?"]

What is with the prudish clue on CLEAVAGE? (6A: Sharp divide). We know what you were thinking breasts, why not just clue it that way? It's fine. Nothing wrong with CLEAVAGE. You have GOES ALL IN in your puzzle and yet you refuse to "go all in" with the CLEAVAGE clue. Come on. The most annoying thing about the puzzle was all the ambiguity, especially around two-part answers, like ___ GAME, ___ NAME, END ___, and especially TEA ___, which half the solving world will have written in as ROOM, since that is the much much much more likely term for the place where you actually have a "spot" of tea. I think of a TEA SHOP as a place where you buy the tea that you then make at home yourself. I'm sure the clue is technically right, on some level, but putting in ROOM and then having to pull it for something worse in a puzzle that was already short on joy ... not a highlight. First I'm ever hearing of someone named FDR, JR. so that was an interesting one to parse (21D: First chairman of the E.E.O.C., familiarly). Besides writing in HOUND at 1A, my other errors included "I SWEAR" before "I SAW IT" (17A: Words from a witness), STREUDEL (sp.!?) before STREUSEL (67A: Crumbly topping), ALPACA before ANGORA (41A: Fluffy fur source), and EMINEM before EILISH (66A: At 18, the youngest person to sweep the four main Grammy categories (Song, Album, Record, Best New Artist)), although there I knew EMINEM was wrong even as I was writing the letters in. I was just stalling to give myself time to remember Billie EILISH's name. 

You're really going with Vikki Carr (!?!?!?!) for your HIM clue (64D: Vikki Carr's "It Must Be ___"). That ... is a choice. I wouldn't mind seeing VIKKI in a puzzle, but ... eh, well, it was a #3 song in 1967, so it's worthy enough, I guess. Just nowhere near my wheelhouse (and I spent years listening almost exclusively to "oldies" stations as a teenager). Speaking of 1967, the Monkees. And speaking of Car(r)s—they had a -mobile. I would've guessed it was a (VW) BUG, but no, it's GTO, which is also a 3-letter car from that era (27D: Car modified into the Monkeemobile). The Pontiac GTO was Motor Trend Car of the Year in 1968. They stopped making them in 1974. And yet GTO appeared more times in 2018 (seven) than it did in 2008 (four) or 1998 (three). How is GTO getting *more* popular? Curious. Fascinating, actually. Most bygone three-letter crosswordese has abated in recent years, but the GTO just keeps cruising along. Bizarrely—extremely bizarrely—there was only one occurrence of GTO before the Shortz era!? And that was in 1984, ten years after they stopped making the damn car. Quite a crossword afterlife this car is having.

See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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1966 Swedish Literature Nobelist who wrote about the struggles of the Jewish people / TUE 3-8-22 / Mythical goat-men / 1988 American Nobelist in Physiology or Medicine / 1976 Peace Nobelist from Northern Ireland who co-founded Community of Peace People / Successful singer or producer of popular music / Bygone G.M. car / Oklahoma city named for a Camelot woman

Constructor: Mary Lou Guizzo

Relative difficulty: Challenging (***for a Tuesday***) (names names names)

THEME: Women Nobelists — a list of women who have won Nobel Prizes ... if there's anything trickier going on here, I don't see it. I think it's just a slate of women from all over the globe in honor of today, International Women's Day:

Theme answers:

• NELLY SACHS (17A: 1966 Swedish Literature Nobelist who wrote about the struggles of the Jewish people)
• GERTRUDE ELION (23A: 1988 American Nobelist in Physiology or Medicine who helped develop the first drug used to fight rejection in organ transplants)
• DONNA STRICKLAND (38A: 2018 Canadian Physics Nobelist who helped implement chirped pulse amplification)
• BETTY WILLIAMS (51A: 1976 Peace Nobelist from Northern Ireland who co-founded Community of Peace People)
• MARIE CURIE (60A: 1911 Polish/French Chemistry Nobelist who pioneered research in radioactivity)
  

Word of the Day: NELLY SACHS (17A) —

Nelly Sachs (German pronunciation: [ˈnɛliː zaks]; 10 December 1891 – 12 May 1970) was a German-Swedish poet and playwright. Her experiences resulting from the rise of the Nazis in World War II Europe transformed her into a poignant spokesperson for the grief and yearnings of her fellow Jews. Her best-known play is Eli: Ein Mysterienspiel vom Leiden Israels (1950); other works include the poems "Zeichen im Sand" (1962), "Verzauberung" (1970), and the collections of poetry In den Wohnungen des Todes (1947), Flucht und Verwandlung (1959), Fahrt ins Staublose (1961), and Suche nach Lebenden(1971). She was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1966. (wikipedia)

• • •

It's Women's History Month, and International Women's Day specifically, so I guess this puzzle is a celebration of that, but "celebration" is not quite the right word. I wish the puzzle had any sense of actual celebration, which is to say I wish it had any of the thematic playfulness you expect a crossword puzzle to have. What we have here is a list. A pious, dutiful list, with facts attached to each clue. It's a short and not terribly exciting museum exhibit or lecture. A trivia test of the most straightforward kind, without any of the wordplay or, well, fun that you might expect from a themed puzzle. I'm sure that all of the theme answers in this puzzle are very much worth remembering, but why are you remembering them specifically in crossword puzzle form? What is particularly interesting, from a crossword standpoint, about this set of names? They all won Nobels ... and they all fit symmetrically in a grid? Is that it? This is a problem I have with a lot of hastily-put-together tribute puzzles, too—the ones that sometimes run just after someone famous has died, say, or ones that run on some historic anniversary. They tend to just be facts. "Here are some facts." OK, facts are cool, but a crossword puzzle should have some hum and life, as well as some kind of wordplay hook, some kind of pleasure that's being offered beyond whatever pleasure you get from simply knowing the answer in a trivia test. This seemed like an arbitrary list. Yes, there are a few restrictions to the list (they're all women, they're all Nobelists, they come from different countries and are thus "international") but there have been many, many other women Nobelists, so why this group? Again, if there's a revealer I'm overlooking or anything that gives the theme greater coherence (anything that's actually in the puzzle and therefore visible to solvers), then I apologize for my blindness. But what it feels like is five random women Nobelists. That's it. These are all crossworthy names, but the puzzle itself feels like it's lacking any specific crossword value.

[In honor of Alfred Nobel, here are some more Swedes concerned with winning]

I hope none of the names created Naticks for any of you. The crosses all seem fair to me, but I can see novices and younger people having trouble with, for instance, the precise spelling of MERCK and ENOKI—the "E" and the "I" in those words, respectively are not very inferable if you don't know the names. And if you don't, my guess is that you are also unlikely to know GERTRUDE ELION (I sure didn't). So, tough luck. But if you are a regular solver, there should've been no trouble there, or anywhere else that I can see. I assume most everyone knows what a BENTO box is by now, but even if you don't, BETTY seems like the best guess for a woman's name, so you should be OK. I confess that I failed this trivia test utterly. I knew MARIE CURIE, of course, but none of the others even rang a bell. The science Nobelist names I don't feel too bad about, but as a literature professor I'm at least slightly embarrassed not to have known NELLY SACHS. I don't teach Swedish literature, or 20th-century literature, it's true, but still, she seems rather important, and I'm glad to learn about her today, so the puzzle did provide me instruction, if not entertainment. There's not much interest in the grid outside the names, primarily because there are no answers longer than six letters, and only two of those (HITMAKER, EMISSARY). The only thing that made me screw up my face in resistance was AIR ARM (47D: Military aviation wing). I guess this is just a general name for what the Air Force is in this country—that is, the part of the military concerned with flight. OK. I can accept that. It's not thrilling, but it's valid. I wish more of this had been thrilling, or at least seemed like it was having a good time and wanted us to join in. Tributes don't have to be humorless exercises in fact dissemination. 

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Comic relief role in Tarzan / SAT 2-12-22 / Parent of a cygnet / Three-beat gait / Italian for tied together / Russian dumplings / Group whose logo is a mirror ambigram / A sculpture of a three-legged one is considered lucky in feng shui / Figure skating move based on the arabesque in ballet

Constructor: Mary Lou Guizzo

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium 

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: ELMORE James (42A: ___ James, the so-called "King of the Slide Guitar") —

Elmore James (January 27, 1918 – May 24, 1963) was an American blues guitarist, singer, songwriter and bandleader. He was known as "King of the Slide Guitar" and was noted for his use of loud amplification and his stirring voice. For his contributions to music, James was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992. [...] James played a wide variety of "blues" (which often crossed over into other styles of music) similar to that of Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and some of B. B. King's work, but distinguished by his guitar's unique tone, coming from a modified hollow-body acoustic guitar that sounded like an amped-up version of the more "modern" solid-body guitars. [...] James influenced many slide players, such as blues guitarists Homesick James, Hound Dog Taylor, and J. B. Hutto. His single string playing also influenced B.B. King and Chuck Berry. Rock guitarists Jimi Hendrix, Brian Jones, Jeremy Spencer, and Frank Zappa have acknowledged his influence. In the Beatles' song "For You Blue", John Lennon plays a slide solo on a Höfner lap steel guitar; George Harrison encourages him with "Go, Johnny, go ... Elmore James' got nothin' on this, baby". (wikipedia)

• • •

Solid but without much spice. I think CONTEXT IS KEY is supposed to be the mar ... quee answer in this thing, but the phrase keeps not quite landing when I say it over and over to myself (43A: "You have to look at the bigger picture"). I see that it is a thing that people say, so I don't mean to cast aspersions on its validity, but if you say "CONTEXT IS..." my brain goes "?" and then goes "EVERYTHING?" Certainly CONTEXT IS KEY is the coolest and most-original-looking thing in the grid, with that "X" and "K" kind of flirting with each other, and it is definitely a parsing adventure if you happen to come at it, as I did, from the middle and back end ("... something about WHISKEY?"). Beyond that, you've got STACEY ABRAMS, a worthy public figure whose first name I can never spell right the first time, but none of the banks of longer answers have much to offer in the way of zing. I do like the song "HE'S A REBEL," for sure, but I've seen it in grids before so it wasn't exactly a surprise (15A: 1962 #1 hit for the Crystals featuring a biker on the record sleeve). The main feature of this puzzle—the one that stood out the most for me—was the repeated alt-spelling of foodstuffs. I was first introduced to PIEROGI by my Aunt Sue, I'm pretty sure ... no idea where that memory is coming from ... but anyway, I'm pretty sure there was an "E" in there. My blogging software seems satisfied with the "E" spelling, so ... let's see what it does with the spelling in this grid: PIROGI (30A: Russian dumplings). OK, it seems to like that too. I guess the transliteration from Russian admits of two spellings. I think the "E" spelling is more common, but I'm also not Russian so who the heck knows? Actually, wikipedia kinda knows—it's got PIEROGI as the main entry, and lists PIROGI as one of the "alternative names." I don't know if PIROGI helped me because I "knew" it or hurt me because I wasn't sure of it. It definitely gave me pause. A similar thing happened with SATE SAUCE (58A: Condiment made with peanuts). I want to put an accent aigu on that "E" in SATE but apparently it doesn't have one. I know SATAY SAUCE very well, so when I got SAUCE I assumed I was going to be dealing with some new-to-me peanut concoction, since SATAY obviously didn't fit. But then it did fit. "SATE" is apparently the Indonesian and Malay spelling of the term. I'm now wondering how SATE SAUCE would taste on PIROGI. I mean, I wouldn't put SATAY SAUCE on PIEROGI, but who knows what taste combinations lurk in these alternative spellings!? Throw in some PEAS, maybe a side of PHO, mwah! Beats DEL TACO.

The appearance of CHEETA made me depressed, as all apes-used-for-human-amusement situations tend to make me depressed. I can't imagine standards for animal handling were so great back when "Tarzan" was on the air. There is no CHEETA in the Edgar Rice Burroughs Tarzan books, but LOL humans love anthropomorphic "comedy" of chimps who think they're people. Ugh. Not my kind of APERY (also, ugh, APERY, why?). I thought PEAS were legumes ... and they are; turns out that "botanically" legumes are fruit. Don't like it?—take it up with your local botanist. The YA in SEE YA SOON feels awfully arbitrary. I would say SEE YA, but I'm not sure I'd extend that abbr. / slangy spelling into the full phrase "SEE [YOU] SOON. When I say SEE YA and SEE YOU SOON, even if I rush that one and run everything together, the vowel sound in "YOU" is distinctly different from "YA." There are a couple of common clue tricks in this puzzle—misdirection you get good at picking up on over time. The use of "spelling" in 29D: Noted spelling expert, for instance. I would never say that a wizard "spells." I would say a wizard casts spells. But this is the NYTXW and quaintness and alt-ness are the order of the day; therefore, "spelling" is "spell-casting" (unless MERLIN has volunteered to take his friend's shift on wizarding night watch—a very different kind of "spelling" (verb (3)). The clues also try to get you with "fancy" at 36D: Not fancy in the least (HATE). Looks like an adjective, but acts like a verb. 

I had UTE before LAO (22A: People with a language of the same name) but the only real trouble I had with the grid came right around PIROGI, at the bottom ends of those long Downs in the NW. I had both CAMEL and OPERA and no idea what came next for either of them (1D: Figure skating move based on the arabesque in ballet / 2D: Theatrically exaggerated behavior). I thought the OPERA- answer was going to be a two-word phrase, some "behavior" I'd never heard of like OPERA HIPS or OPERA LIPS or OPERA TICS ... and that is the story of how I finally realized it was one word. From OPERA space TICS to OPERATICS. As for CAMEL, well, I'm not watching the Winter Olympics at all this year, so my figure skating terminology is rusty. I just couldn't come up with the word that follows CAMEL. I wanted LOOP but then I thought "no, it's TOE LOOP," so then I thought CAMEL TOE, which was an unfortunate mental digression to say the least. Really hard to shake. You can really convince yourself that CAMEL TOE is a skating move if you say it a bunch of times. For decades I convinced myself that skaters did maneuvers called "triple sow cows" (it's "Salchow"). Anyway, SPIN was so basic that it never occurred to me. Until it did. That's it for trouble. And that's it for me today. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Meredith's half-sister on Grey's Anatomy / SAT 11-20-21 / Song word sung twice before goodbye / One named model and philanthropist / Drink with a shot balanced on chopsticks over a beer / Gracious words when accepting an honor / Scoop often used in Indian cuisine / Org associated with the note series G-E-C / French phrase in many bistro names

Constructor: Mary Lou Guizzo and Jeff Chen

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: EHUD Olmert (9D: ___ Olmert, former Israeli P.M.) —

Ehud Olmert (/ˈoʊlmərt, -mɛərt/; Hebrew: אֶהוּד אוֹלְמֶרְט‎, IPA: [eˈhud ˈolmeʁt]; born 30 September 1945) is an Israeli politician and lawyer. He served as the 12th Prime Minister of Israel from 2006 to 2009 and before that as a cabinet minister from 1988 to 1992 and from 2003 to 2006. Between his first and second stints as a cabinet member, he served as mayor of Jerusalem from 1993 to 2003. After serving as PM he was sentenced to serve a prison term over convictions for accepting bribes and for obstruction of justice during his terms as mayor of Jerusalem and as trade minister. (wikipedia)

• • •

This is a solid effort. SAKE BOMB, EXTRA MILE, and NIGHT OWLS were the high points for me. A couple of the longer answers wobbled, namely FLEW A KITE, which is a 8/10 on the "EAT A SANDWICH" scale of "arbitrary blank-a-blank" verb phrases (extra points for the past tense!), and YOU'VE GOT THIS!, which colloquially, in practice, seems far more likely to be said YOU GOT THIS! I see that both versions are in use, but the full, grammatically correct version of the phrase sounds stilted, like someone trying to use an expression not at all natural to them. In actual speech, in actual practice, that "VE" mostly disappears. Oh, the one other longer answer that I had a bad reaction to, the one that made me cringe and ugh the most, was "I'M HUMBLED," not because it's not a fully real, in-the-language, crossword-appropriate phrase (it is), but because the phrase is always so repulsively disingenuous (18A: Gracious words when accepting an honor). Getting a major award is not humbling. You are not humbled. Never believe someone standing in a tux or a gown holding a gold statue or any other award when they tell you "I'M HUMBLED." They're honored, but they are not humbled. In fact, if you say, about yourself, that you are humbled, it is almost certainly a lie. You are performing humility so that people will think you're not an egomaniac, but brother, in most cases, your fake, self-aggrandizing "I'M HUMBLED" makes you seem like a bigger egomaniac than you'll ever know. Real humility isn't on stage speaking into a mic with an award in its hand. You know what's humbling? Failure. The term "humblebrag" exists for a reason. You can be grateful, that might be a deeply sincere sentiment on the occasion of winning an award, a very good sentiment to express when being honored. But spare me the "I'M HUMBLED." End of Ted Talk.

Only hangups today were in predictable places, namely secondary characters in shows / books / movies I care nothing about. I know "Grey's Anatomy" was hugely popular, but I don't know a single person who watched it, or at least no one who ever talked about it, or even mentioned it, so ... let's see, I know the kid who starred in "Can't Buy Me Love" grew up to star in the show (Patrick ... somebody ... maybe on the show he's known as "dreamy"? McDreamy? ... yes! Patrick Dempsey!), and I think Katherine HEIGL was on it, at some point, and I know SHONDA how-is-she-not-in-crosswords-more RHIMES created it, and I know it's a medical drama and it takes place in Seattle. After that, I'm out. LEXIE? (14A: Meredith's half sister on "Grey's Anatomy") Yeesh. I just waited around for a name-like entity to appear in those squares. My other name issue was ARWEN, which I kinda sorta remember from watching those Incredibly Dull and Ponderous LOTR movies back in the aughts. But honestly I wrote ROWEN in there at first. One TOLKIEN answer per puzzle is quite enough, folks. 

I had BRASH before FRESH (1A: Sassy) (Still. More. Sass. 3-day streak), and MARE before SIRE (figured SIRE was too obvious, whoops) (4D: Part of an equine bloodline). Also "BELIEVE ME" before "BELIEVE IT" (second "IT" of the puzzle, which I normally wouldn't notice, but for some reason, probably because I stumbled on IT, I really noticed IT this time). COLAS before MALTS (12D: Fountain fare). ACRE before DIRT (52D: It covers a lot of ground). Very proud of the musical part of my brain today, as I got "HEY" after only a couple seconds cogitation (I actually had the "NA-NA NA-NA" part of the "Hey, Jude" refrain as an answer in a puzzle the other day, and I'm now realizing that I thought today's "HEY" was also from "Hey, Jude" but now that I sing it out to myself, it's from "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" by a group that I'm just learning now is called "Steam." I think the "Na na hey hey" refrain is sometimes shouted at basketball games when someone on the opposing team gets ejected. I could be imagining that. But it feels right. So maybe my musical brain is slightly broken after all, but HEY (HEY), I got the answer right, and I *also* got NBC instantly from its musical clue (32A: Org. associated with the note series G-E-C), so two for two on the music memory front, I'll take it. On that note (!): 

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. in case you don't remember the NBC 3-note progression, here you go:

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Seminal William S. Burrows novel 1959 / FRI 2-7-19 / Intensifying suffix in modern slang / Fictional Ethiopian princess / Certain PR in two different senses / Role for Nichelle Nichols Zoe Saldana

Constructor: Mary Lou Guizzo and Erik Agard

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (trivia just not in my wheelhouse) (high 6s)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: Sue (?) (15A: Sue at Chicago's Field Museum, e.g. => T-REX) —

Sue is the nickname given to FMNH PR 2081, which is one of the largest, most extensive, and best preserved Tyrannosaurus rex specimens ever found, at over 90% recovered by bulk. It was discovered on 12 August 1990, by Sue Hendrickson, an explorer and fossil collector, and was named after her. After ownership disputes were settled, the fossil was auctioned in October 1997, for US $8.3 million, the highest amount ever paid for a dinosaur fossil, and is now a permanent feature at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Illinois. (wikipedia)

• • •

Well, first off, that is not how you spell William S. Burroughs (17A: Seminal William S. Burrows novel, 1959 => "NAKED LUNCH"). It's not as bad as claiming that Harold Ramis directed "Ghostbusters" (which the NYTXW also did recently), but it's pretty bad. I will admit that I missed the error, as I was solving quickly. But then it's not my *job* to catch the error. So. Yeah. Quality control. Look into it. OK. Moving on.


This seems like a reasonably well put-together puzzle, but it just wasn't for me. The proper name trivia was (mostly) out of my wheelhouse and somewhat dully clued, and I just never got that exhilarating "ooh, cool" feeling I get with the best Fridays. I set the bar pretty high for Friday, as it is a hard day to botch. I think of Friday as breezy / fun themeless day (as opposed to grinding maybe-fun Saturday). I just couldn't find the handle on this one. Got it done in reasonable time, but only perked up at "NAKED LUNCH" and "I BLAME MYSELF." Clues often felt like they were straining for novelty / cleverness, which just left them awkward and opaque. E.g. [Ring bearers] = TOES. I mean, yeah, sure, OK, people put rings there, and I see that you're playing on the concept of "ring bearer" at, like, a wedding ceremony, but *getting* that left me feeling more "really? ... I guess ..." than "ooh, good one!" I want "ooh, good one!" as often as possible. So often the problem with NYTXW is the cluing voice (which is ultimately the editor's, though the constructors' original clues do set the tone). Clues were drab or else weirdly involved, but to no great effect. I mean, a paragraph for a CALVIN clue that wasn't even that funny? (49A: Comics title character who says "Getting an inch of snow is like winning 10 cents in the lottery"). I don't see the point. Mostly, though, this was just a bad fit. I don't care at all about reality TV, for instance (though I somehow ultimately knew PADMA LAKSHMI's name—not sure how) (5D: Emmy-nominated host of "Top Chef"), and I don't know Sue the TREX, and I forgot that those actresses played UHURA, and on and on. So I do, largely, BLAME MYSELF for my dissatisfaction today.


The most hilarious moment of my solve wasn't so hilarious when it was happening to me, but a few minutes later, in retrospect, upon reflection, with some distance, I could look back and laugh. That moment was the very last square I filled in. I looked at E_HIBITA and thought "that ... is not a thing ... that cannot be a thing ... ECHIBITA? EPHIPBITA? What in the ...? And what could someone named 'Sue' be with the letter pattern TRE_? Is she TREF? omigod is she a TREE? EEHIBITA? That can't be right ... [checks all crosses] ... nothing else is wrong, what is Happeninggggg ... . .   .    . oh." It's an X. X marks the spot. T [dash] REX / EXHIBIT [space] A. Wow, parsing that cross, where both answers have single-letter parts (the T in TREX, the A in EXHIBIT A) and where both answers have (to me) confusing clues ... that was a bizarrely perfect pothole. Thankfully, when I got it, I *understood* the answers in both directions, so at least I had a satisfactory feeling of completion. Sometimes you struggle and then you get your answer but you don't really *get* it, you know? It's actually amusing to me how bad I screwed that last box up. I only wish the rest of the solve was as entertaining as my own incompetence. QUIERO strikes me as too long for a foreign word. Do you JAPE ... something? (26D: Say mockingly) I think of it as an intransitive verb (or a noun, actually).

There's not really anything in the clue for "WE'RE ALL SET" that indicates the "WE'RE" part—in fact, "ALL SET" would work perfectly as an answer for that clue all on its own—so that was a mild bummer (28D: "Good to go!"). I had ATWIRL instead of AWHIRL at first, which was awkward but not terribly consequential (43A: Spinning). EQUABLY looks like it's missing letters (i.e. I want it to be EQUITABLY, which would also mean [In an even manner]). Hoping for somewhat more joy tomorrow. See you then.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Nine-time PGA Tour winner Jay / WED 1-15-20 / Taiwan-based computer giant / Receptacle for one doing decoupage / Tennis great Huber

Constructor: Mary Lou Guizzo

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (3:30)

THEME: boxing phrases — all with non-boxing clues:

Theme answers:

• HIT BELOW THE BELT (17A: Engaged in foul play)
• SPARRING PARTNER (22A: One engaged in friendly contention) [not sure you wanna double up on "engaged" after using it in your first theme clue...]
• THE GLOVES ARE OFF (36A: "Oh, now they're really going to fight!")
• THROW IN THE TOWEL (49A: Cry "Uncle!")
• PULLS ONE'S PUNCHES (56A: Hold back)

Word of the Day: Jay HAAS (19D: Nine-time P.G.A. Tour winner Jay) —

ay Dean Haas (born December 2, 1953) is an American professional golfer formerly of the PGA Tour who now plays on the PGA Tour Champions. [...] Haas has had a solid career on the PGA Tour, winning nine times between 1978 and 1993. He had a resurgence in 2003, when he finished in the top 30 on the money list for the first time since 1995 and made the United States Presidents Cup team. The following year he was one of Hal Sutton's two captain's picks for the Ryder Cup, and made his third appearance in that event.

Haas was known for being one of the most consistent players on the PGA Tour over the course of his career and ended up playing 798 events. He is only five starts off Mark Brooks' record. He has made the cut 592 times on the PGA Tour, more than any other player. Haas also has the distinction of playing in the most major tournaments without a win, with 87 during his PGA Tour career. (wikipedia)

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Weird puzzle. The themers were all incredibly easy to get. Worked a few Downs into each of them before ever looking at the clues, and then got every one at first glance. I see the puzzle is trying really hard to come up with clues that steer the context away from boxing, but ... I dunno. It just looks like a lot of violence to me. Nothing very interesting going on except that every themer is 15 letters long. The gloves never actually come off in boxing, but we'll just let that one go. I guess this puzzle proves that boxing has given us a lot of idiomatic phrases, but that's about all this puzzle does. The fill  is truly poor. As bad as I've seen in a while, and certainly the worst I've seen this year. So jarring to have the themers be pieces of cake and then have to struggle with the shorter gunk holding it all together. Everywhere you look, unpleasantness. The worst for me was the "ERI TU" / IDIO- / NOTV / GLUEPOT smashup in the upper-middle-left of the grid. Glue POT? (25D: Receptacle for one doing decoupage) That's a thing? And "ERI TU" here is a partial!? Those five letters are quintessential crosswordese, the kind of thing you absolutely positively want to avoid if at all possible, so that your grid doesn't seem like some awful relic. To shove "ERI TU" in there with RLS and IDIO ... it's so rough and awful-feeling. Unfortunately, other parts of the grid aren't clean either. ENUF ROLF ANO ... HAAS AAAS ... HATH ENTR' ... ARS NEY ... ENOLA UIES ... SCHUSS SSR ... there's hardly a patch of land that isn't tainted by something to make you go EWW or UGH. It's all just so tired and tiresome.


ANKE held me up a bit because I thought the last letter of her name was an "A" (40D: Tennis great Huber). I guess she was pretty "great"—way greater than Jay HAAS was at golf, that's for sure—but (like HAAS) she never won a major. I wouldn't use her name unless I absolutely had to. But I wouldn't be commenting on her name at all if the rest of the grid weren't such a mess. I am totally unfamiliar with PUT as a correct answer to 60D: Wager. Like most solvers (probably???) I wrote in BET (I had the "T" from SETH already). I'm guessing it's some technical thing, inserted here to make an otherwise very very easy puzzle a tiny bit harder. Or is it as simple as, say, "I PUT $5 on Mane Event to show!"? Maybe that's it. TMC is not an abbr anyone uses—just try to get a first page of search results that *doesn't* suggest that maybe you were thinking of TCM (a real abbr. in common use because it's a channel people actually watch). And TMC is an [HBO competitor] in What universe??? Does HBO even know The Movie Channel exists?? First you want me to believe MASHABLE is a "competitor" of BuzzFeed, now you want me to believe that TMC is a "competitor" of HBO. No. No, I say. You are causing "competitor" to lose all meaning, and I have to draw a line somewhere.


There are very plausible TWO-HIT game scenarios where the pitcher gets absolutely shellacked. How many batters did the pitcher walk? Or hit with a pitch. Walk a couple guys and give up a homer, and then walk a couple more and give up a triple that the next batter knocks in with a sac fly ... suddenly you are pitching a TWO-HIT game and you're down 6-0. Not "really good." Yes, under most circumstances, if you go the distance and just give up two hits, you have pitched well. But the further you drift from the legitimately named games (NO-HIT, ONE-HIT), the more your claims that the game was necessarily well pitched come to seem suspect. The end.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Irish girl's name related to word honor / WED 3-6-19 / Style of yoga in heated room / Hindu's bindi traditionally / 1950s-60s TV emcee Jack

Constructor: Mary Lou Guizzo and Erik Agard

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (4:57 — oversized grid)

THEME: in like a LION, out like a LAMB — there's a word ladder (...) that goes from LION to LAMB, and then there are three themers, each of which starts with a relevant season-changing word:

Theme answers:

• MARCH OF PROGRESS (???) (17A: History moving forward)
• WINTER WONDERLAND (41A: Snowy expanse) 
• SPRING HAS SPRUNG (62A: Cry when warmer weather returns)

Word of the Day: Michael PEÑA (14A: Michael who played the title role in 2014's "Cesar Chavez") —

Michael Anthony Peña (/ˈpɛnjə/; Spanish: [ˈpeɲa]; born January 13, 1976) is an American actor and musician. He has starred in many films, such as Crash (2004), World Trade Center (2006), Shooter(2007), Observe and Report (2009), Tower Heist (2011), Battle: Los Angeles (2011), End of Watch(2012), Gangster Squad (2013), American Hustle (2013), Fury (2014), Frontera (2014), The Martian(2015), Collateral Beauty (2016), CHiPs (2017), My Little Pony: The Movie (2017), Ant-Man (2015) and its sequel Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018), and A Wrinkle in Time (2018). Peña also had the title role in Cesar Chavez (2014) and plays the co-lead role in the TV series Narcos: Mexico (2018). (wikipedia)

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I honestly don't get this at all. Any part of it. It makes no sense. Well, the "in like a lion out like a lamb thing" I get. It's a saying, so why not try to make a puzzle around it, I guess, but why *this* puzzle? Why 16-wide? May see a weird place to start complaining, given how many other problems ther are, but seriously. To make the ladder a true ladder, with 4-letter "rungs" going right down the middle? Is that it? I can tell you that that does not make a word ladder any more appealing (the appeal of all word ladders being permanently set at "zero"). You could put WINTER SOLDIER in the middle, or WINTER [anything] that makes an odd number, and bring the damn grid back to 15 wide. Stagger the stupid "rungs," who cares? As is, you have this conspicuous (and ugly) black "L"s wrapping around the 15s in the NW and SE. Bizarre. Then there's the very fact of a word ladder—one of the least pleasurable crossword theme conceits of all time. Then there's the odd theme answer progression. MARCH answer not about MARCH, but WINTER and SPRING answers definitely about those seasons, and anyway, the adage refers to weather, not the literal seasons. And it's a dumb adage anyway, if you've experienced March in central New York (this last bit is not the puzzle's fault).


What else? The fill. It is inexplicably bad. My printed-out grid is filthy with red ink. Long Downs are fine (the only part of the puzzle I like), but who the hell is NOREEN? I had -OREEN and absolutely no idea, and with the first word in ladder unclued ... solving fun! OXX is to fill what word ladders are to crossword themes, i.e. the worst. ING NOVAE OMOO INRE (!) ALAI (!!) MINIMA ELNINO PAAR APSE TSAR ASADA XIII LALA LEI NAW ASTI SIB AVER ELSA ENID HRE. That there is an assault. A crosswordese / junk fill assault. Maybe change MARCH OF PROGRESS to something snappier—did you all know that was the name of this illustration??

I did not. Anyway, do a different MARCH. Make WINTER and SPRING answers be unrelated to the seasons. Refill the entire grid. I don't know. Do something. This is the longest streak of not liking the puzzle that I have ever been on. 9 days (I'm told—I don't actually keep track of these things). How is the "Best Puzzle in the World" routinely this mediocre? Puzzles should be fun to solve. Fun. And clean. Clean is fun. I CAN'T believe this prestigious puzzle org. can't get its dang act together. It's really, truly, genuinely frustrating and disappointing.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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