Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle: Matthew Faiella

Constructor: Matthew Faiella

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: BACK IN BLACK (46A: Hit rock album of 1980 depicted three times by this puzzle) — three black squares must mentally be turned to "BACK" for the answers that precede and follow them to make sense:

Theme answers:

SETBACK 3D: Temporary defeat)
OUTBACK (18A: Uninhabited wilderness)
BACKPEDAL (22D: Recant an opinion)
BACKSEAT DRIVER (19A: Motor coaches?)
KICKBACK (17D: Certain bribe)
DIDN'T HOLD BACK (30A: Went all out)
BACK TRACK (35D: Retrace one's steps)
BACKBONE (32A: Trait of a courageous person)
STAND BACK (19D: "Out of my way!")
FULLBACK (36A: Position in soccer and football)
BACK FLIP (40D: Move famously performed by figure skater Surya Bonaly at the 1988 Winter Olympics)
BACKLESS DRESS (37A: Red carpet attire)

Word of the Day: LAS Posadas (1A: ___ Posadas (annual Latin American celebration)) —

Las Posadas is a novenario (an extended devotional prayer). It is celebrated chiefly in Latin America, El Salvador, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and by Latin Americans in the United States. It is typically celebrated each year between December 16 and December 24. Latin American countries have continued to celebrate the holiday, with very few changes to the tradition. // Las Posadas derives from the Spanish word posada (lodging, or accommodation) which, in this case, refers to the inn from the Nativity story. It uses the plural form as the celebration lasts for a nine-day interval (called the novena) during the Christmas season, which represents the nine-month pregnancy of Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ. // This celebration has been a Mexican tradition for over 400 years, starting in 1586. Many Mexican holidays include dramatizations of original events, a tradition which has its roots in the ritual of Bible plays used to teach religious doctrine to a largely illiterate population in 10th- and 11th-century Europe. The plays lost favor with the Church and were eventually banned as they became popular through the addition of folk music and other non-religious elements; they were reintroduced in the 16th century [...] as the Christmas pageant — a new kind of religious ceremony to accompany the Christmas holiday. [...] Two people dress up as Mary and Joseph and certain houses are designated to be "inns"; the head of the procession carries a candle inside a paper shade. The actors travel to one house each night for nine nights. At each house, the resident responds by singing a song and the pair are recognized and allowed to enter; the group of guests come into the home and kneel around the Nativity scene to pray (typically, the Rosary). The final location may be a church instead of a home. // Individuals may play the various parts of Mary (María) and Joseph (José), with the expectant mother riding a real donkey, attendants such as angels and shepherds joining along the way, or pilgrims who may carry images of the holy personages instead, while children may carry poinsettias. The procession is followed by musicians, with the entire procession singing posadas such as pedir posada. At the end of each night, Christmas carols are sung, children break open star-shaped piñatas and everyone sits for a feast. The piñatas used during the holiday are traditionally made out of clay. (wikipedia)

• • •

To be clear, the "Medium" part of the "Easy-Medium" difficulty rating comes almost entirely from one little patch of fill (HEME HOOK KRYPTON WIPEOUT VEAU). The rest of it is about the easiest rebus (or trick rebus) puzzle I've ever done. I don't think I've ever picked up a trick theme so fast. I didn't know LAS Posadas, but I could infer that LAS no problem, and then the first thing I did was check the "S" cross: 3D: Temporary defeat. I thought "SETback? Is this some kind of 'back' puzzle?" Checked the "T" cross on SET and yup, that checked out. So I knew there was a missing 'back' theme right ... here (about 10 seconds into the solve):

But where does the 'back' go? That was all that was left to figure out. Actually, at that point, there could've been lots more to figure out, but my first order of business: find the missing 'back.' To that end, I just jumped to the revealer. Correctly surmised that it was the last long Across, and what do you know? An album I've known since the year it came out. And the album title gives you a completely unambiguous explanation of the theme, and the answer to "where's the missing 'back'?" The 'back' ... is in the 'black' (square). So I've basically exhausted any surprises the puzzle might've held for me, and the solve has barely started:

The second 'back' square came easily a few seconds later, at FULL(BACK), so ... let's say I'm 30-45 seconds in and I've already discovered the gimmick *and* sussed out two of the three 'back' squares. This is the opposite of climactic. Not even anticlimactic. Prematurely climactic? At any rate, upside down and backwards. It's true that the title BACK IN BLACK is fairly screaming out to be used as a revealer in a crossword puzzle, but the black square-rebus is not a new conceit, and this is about as basic a thing as you can do with that conceit—same word in each black square. And only three lousy squares. The rest of the solve felt perfunctory. I kinda liked that the theme managed to make all the longer Across answers part of the theme experience, so there aren't theme-looking answers in the grid that actually have no relationship to the theme. The puzzle ends up having both a conventional element (the four long Acrosses are thematic) and an unconventional element (black = 'back'). So formally, it's interesting. But it was pretty dull to solve.

HEME, though, man ... yeesh (12A: Iron-rich molecule in blood). I can see how the theme density in that specific, small part of the grid led to HEME. Both SET and OUT are fixed—they're thematic, and thus won't budge. So you've pretty much gotta tear the NW corner down to the studs, removing big elements like AMITYVILLE and KRYPTON, if you want to get HEME out of there. Unless you're comfortable with MOOK. That would fix everything. MEME / MOOK. But I have this feeling that "MOOK" is offensive, pejorative, unacceptable ... huh, looks like it's just a "foolish, insignificant, or contemptible person." So it's bad, but it's not racial / ethnic-slur bad. It's also the nickname of the protagonist of Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing. Yes, this is how much I hate HEME—I'm willing to entertain the idea that MOOK might actually be an improvement (MEME is definitely better). Or even the partial "BE ME," if you could find a good one—I would take that over HEME, which caused me to have to run the alphabet for that first letter (as soon as I hit 'H' I was like "oh ... yeah, I've heard of that. I hate it, but I've heard of it").

I couldn't get the "H" in HEME from the cross because I had -OO- at 12D: Captivate and no idea, none. And also no idea about KRYPTON until much later (21A: Element between bromine and rubidium). And VEAU was a guess (Fr. for "veal," but I was oddly willing to accept the possibility that the answer might be VIAN (?) ... I thought VIAN might be short for "viand," which means "meat"—yes, seriously I thought this) (24A: Blanquette de ___ (French stew)).

As for WIPEOUT, never heard of it (4D: Game show billed as the "world's largest obstacle course"). I stopped regular-ass cable television a long time ago, so if it's not very good or if people I know don't watch it, I got no idea what's happening in TV land. Especially contemporary game shows or reality shows or humiliation shows of one kind or another. Nope. The only "obstacle course" show that I've ever actually watched is American Gladiators, which I'm laughing just remembering. Kids, in the olden days, there wasn't a lot to watch, so sometimes you watched American Gladiators.

Bullets:

17A: Doner ___ (meat dish) (KEBAB) — always an adventure figuring out which way the puzzle is going to spell this answer. I just write in K-B-B and wait for crosses to show me the way.
35A: Former N.F.L. quarterback Tim (TEBOW) — probably shouldn't have stray 'backs' out there in your 'back'-themed puzzles. I enjoyed seeing Tim, though. Brought back memories. Like the time I sat directly behind home plate and watched him hit a homerun on the first pitch of his first plate appearance with the Mets AA affiliate, my local minor league team, the Binghamton Rumble Ponies.

11D: Brits may refer to them as "boozers" (PUBS) — I might've guessed SOTS, but I already had the cross-referenced ALES in place (26D: Offerings from 11-Down), and all the crosses were easy, so I don't even remember seeing this clue while solving.
38D: Whom Count von Count is a parody of (DRACULA) — Count von Count is just the name of the Count on Sesame Street. I only ever knew him as "The Count," so though this answer was easy to get, the clue was semi-mysterious to me.

5D: Like the majority of products sold at H Mart (ASIAN) — I know of this place only from the book Crying in H Mart.

28D: Years, in Uruguay (ANOS) — if you can eliminate Spanish "assholes" from your grid, you should eliminate Spanish "assholes" from your grid (and since you can't enter "Ñ" in your grid, and it wouldn't make sense for the cross anyway, Spanish "assholes" is always what you have in your grid, every time). Here, look how easy. This is just one of many simple fixes (UPDATE: I was wrong, it’s not so easy— BONE is thematic and you can’t change it!—so just imagine this “fix” features ENOS instead of EROS)

2D: Titular horror movie town (AMITYVILLE) — wow, AC/DC and AMITYVILLE, this puzzle's really leaning into my own personal Tween Era.

[1979]

[1977]

37D: Heraldic animal (LION) — so ... animal frequently featured on heraldry. A coat-of-arms beast. My mind went to mythical creatures, gryphons and dragons and unicorns and what not. When I got LION I was like "oh ... yeah, that too, normal animals too."