Hairstyle similar to a bowl cut / SUN 7-19-26 / Whitesmith's material / Judge of diamond value? / Person providing a sworn account / One-named singer with the 1994 hit "You Gotta Be" / Strauss opera inspired by a Sophocles tragedy / Britain's most prestigious military decoration / Block someone's passage, say / 2000 Christina Aguilera #1 hit

Constructor: Michael Lieberman

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

[31D: "Star Wars" character Kylo ___]

THEME: "Raising Capital" — theme answers (running Across) jog upward for a stretch before returning to their normal eastward direction—that upward stretch spells out a world capital each time: 

Theme answers:

• THANKS A MILLION (25A: "I really, really appreciate it!") (Lima)
• MAIL-IN REBATE (28A: After-the-fact discount) (Bern)
• VICTORIA CROSS (69A: Britain's most prestigious military decoration) (Cairo)
• DROOLS OVER (71A: Fantasizes about) (Oslo)
• ERECT A BARRIER (73A: Block someone's passage, say) (Rabat)
• HOME MORTGAGE (110A: Bank offering for a property buyer) (Rome)
• "WHAT A GIRL WANTS" (112A: 2000 Christina Aguilera #1 hit) (Riga)

Word of the Day: EDGAR (3D: Hairstyle similar to a bowl cut) —

The Edgar cut, otherwise known as the Edgar or the Edgar haircut, is a hairstyle often associated with Latino culture. In the 2010s and 2020s, the haircut became popular with members of Generation Z and Millennials. The haircut first became popular in US border states in the Southwest, such as Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. The haircut has been compared to a bowl cut, a similar haircut with a straight fringe. // The Edgar hairstyle is usually characterized as the front hair having straight fringes, or bangs, along with the sides tapered. The hairstyle can be worn with any hair texture, including more wavy and curly hair. The Edgar hairstyle is most prominent among young Latinos. // The origin for the name Edgar is unconfirmed, although it is often misattributed to having been named after former Seattle Mariners baseball player Edgar Martínez in early 2019. // The hairstyle is associated with the takuaches, members of a Mexican-American subculture of truck enthusiasts, and sometimes called the 'takuache cut' as a result.. The hairstyle has been found to have similarities to the hairstyles of Indigenous tribes such as the Jumano. The haircut is famously slangily called the "cuh" in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, after the song Cuh 956 by Dagobeat. (wikipedia)

• • •

You're not really "raising capital," so much as raising the part of a phrase that, backwards, spells a capital, but I suppose that it's all OK, since the "raised" part reads correctly as a Down answer. It would be much harder to appreciate the "capital" part of it all if you had to read the capital upside-down. Anyway, this theme was mildly entertaining. I enjoyed remembering four- and five-letter world capitals, and piecing together the winding theme answers that contained them. Well, most of them. I did not particularly enjoy ERECT A BARRIER, which is giving off extreme EAT A SANDWICH vibes. Truly the worst, most contrived themer of the lot. But the others are all solid, even fun. OK, no one's ever going to describe HOME MORTGAGE as "fun," but THANKS A MILLION and DROOLS OVER have good (if messy) energy, and "WHAT A GIRL WANTS"—that's inspired. My favorite of the lot, by far. Man, I loved that song. Also "Genie in a Bottle" (same album, so same time period). Reminds me very, very much of my first year here in Binghamton. Huge hit. Catchy in a way I found hard to deny. I would love to be able to say I'm more a "Big Poppa" guy than a "WHAT A GIRL WANTS" guy, but I would be lying (I do like "Big Poppa," I just didn't listen to it with any regularity) (I also missed the Wu-Tang Clan entirely, somehow. What the f--- was I doing in the '90s??? Besides taking forever to write my dissertation, I mean? Huge hip-hop knowledge gap, sadly).

The fill today ... IT'S OK. Not sparkling, but not terrible either. I only DEEP SIGHed a couple of times. At ERECT A BARRIER, obviously. Also at DECLARANT (!?). Needed every cross to get that one. Yesterday, A FORTIRIORI, today DECLARANT. Yeesh. [Grimace]. Easy on the legalese, guys. Also did not love STEEPENS, as clued (80A: Gets more expensive). I know that "steep" is slang for "expensive," but when you put "steep" into verb form ... it really doesn't work. Can't imagine it. Ear rejects it. But beyond that, no real ugly spots. Maybe a bit more crosswordese than I'd like (SKEE IONIA ISO OHO SCH VSO OWS EMS ENT ULNAE etc. etc. AND ON AND ON), but then there's enough longer and livelier stuff to keep the puzzle from being a total drag. PLEADS OUT, NUTCRACKERS, "GET A GRIP!," stuff like that. There's nothing terribly obscure here today. Just a couple of pop culture items that are bound to throw many if not most solvers off balance. Firstly, DES'REE ... is there an accent on her name? ... no, spelled it right the first time, yay me. I would not call her a household name, but she sure has a name that's built for crosswords. If you were alive and near a radio at all in the mid-'90s, you definitely heard "You Gotta Be," though there's a good chance you never knew the name of the artist. Well, now you know.

It's also possible that you knew the band Mötley Crüe but had no idea what the lead singer's name is. That seems reasonable. I somehow knew he was Vince Neil, though I think I misspelled it at first today (NEAL). Continuing our musical odyssey, there's also the Psychedelic FURS—I was just looking at the Pretty in Pink soundtrack earlier today (that is, Saturday). They sang the title song. Also "Love My Way," which may be the only other song I can name by them. Oh, wait, no—they also sang "The Ghost in You," which is terrific.

Besides DECLARANT, the only thing I really didn't know was the EDGAR haircut (see Word of the Day, above). The theme was pretty easy to uncover. Once you hit the [See title] and [—] clues, and the theme answers don't seem to fit in their allotted spaces, you know something's up. [See title] makes things fairly obvious—part of the answer goes up ... probably spells out a capital. I actually thought the "capital" might be monetary (LIRE? EURO?), and like I said, at first I thought the "capital" would literally go up, from bottom to top, not top to bottom—but all this stuff sorted itself out in fairly short order. 

Bullets:

• 65A: Judge of diamond value? (AARON) — this is AARON Judge of the New York Yankees, 8-time All-Star and 3-time AL MVP winner. He played college ball for the Fresno State Bulldogs. This is of interest only to people who grew up in Fresno (i.e. me). 
• 55A: Actress Shirley of "The Apartment" (MACLAINE) — fun fact: The Apartment is my favorite movie. I mean, I hate to choose among my precious babies, but if I had to choose, then The Apartment wins (also in the mix: Cleo from 5 to 7, Chinatown, Killer of Sheep, and Rear Window)

• 79A: Brand seen on the U.S. World Cup jerseys (NIKE) — today, the World Cup concludes with the championship match between Spain and Argentina. Yesterday's third-place match between France and England, I didn't watch, but based on the absolutely insane score (England won 6-4), it doesn't seem like anyone was really trying, at least not defensively, yeesh. 10 goals combined??? That's the most of the tournament, the most since Germany beat Curaçao 7-1 in the Group Stage (first round). Expect the Spain-Argentina match to be a much, much lower-scoring affair, especially as Spain has conceded just one goal the entire tournament.
• 5D: Strauss opera inspired by a Sophocles tragedy (ELEKTRA) — I'm never sure if it's ELEKTRA or ELECTRA. Apparently it's both. Wikipedia's entry is for "Electra" ("also spelt Elektra"). The record label is ELEKTRA. "K" seems Greekier, but if you went with "C" there, that's a reasonable "mistake."

• 16D: Whitesmith's material (TIN) — I've not heard the term "whitesmith" before, though TIN wasn't hard to infer (blacksmiths work with metal ... three-letter metal ... tada). 

"A whitesmith is a metalworker who does finishing work on iron and steel such as filing, lathing, burnishing or polishing. The term also refers to a person who works with "white" or light-coloured metals, and is sometimes used as a synonym for tinsmith. Whitesmithing developed as a speciality of blacksmithing in the 1700s, when extra time was given to filing and polishing certain products." (wikipedia)

• 45D: Classic Italian appetizer (BRUSCHETTA) — after trying to make PROSCIUTTO work here for a second, I got enough crosses to figure this one out. The "CH" in BRUSCHETTA is hard, like the "K" in ELEKTRA. Broo-SKET-uh. You can pronounce it "sh." Lots of people do. Lots of wrong people. Or, you can pronounce it like this, which is my new favorite variation:

That's all for today. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Evil counterpart in an 1886 novella / SUN 4-19-26 / Winged beings of folklore / Heavy metal instrument in Verdi's "Il Trovatore" / Dooley Wilson's role in "Casablanca" / Slang term for a recording studio / Extract said to promote relaxation / Fatty tuna, at a sushi bar / Old name for Tokyo / Half of a candy duo / Eponymous hypnotist / Elaborate invitation from a senior, maybe

Constructor: Michael Lieberman

Relative difficulty: Medium

[I missed a a double Star Wars day on Friday!]

***Important Message from the NYT for PRINT SOLVERS***: 

Editor’s note: If you plan to solve the Sunday Crossword in this week’s New York Times Magazine, you will find that the answers will not fit. After the issue had already been printed, we discovered that there was an error with the solvable grid of the Sunday Crossword. A corrected version of the puzzle can be found on Page 25 of Sunday’s daily New York Times. We sincerely apologize for the confusion. The grids available to print online are correct.

THEME: "Nuclear Fusion" — six Down answers are two-word answers where each word is four letters and both words share a core (i.e. they have the same two center letters, hence "nuclear fusion"); these six answers are represented in the grid as one four-letter answer, with the first and last square of each answer (the non-core part) containing two letters. Thus, DEAD HEAT, for example, becomes [D/H] EA [D/T] (the "dead" and the "heat" parts are both present simultaneously but are to be taken sequentially). In the crosses, the doubled-letters are read as sequential letters (e.g., in the DEAD HEAT example, the crosses for the first and last letters are ISLAN[D/H]OPPED and PLAYE[D/T]O WIN:

Theme answers:

[D/H] EA [D/T] ("dead heat") (24D: Race that's too close to call)

• ISLAN[D H]OPPED (23A: Traveled from Syros to Naxos to Mykonos, say)
• PLAYE[D T]O WIN (36A: Wasn't messing around, say)

[L/G] AS [T/P] ("last gasp") (26D: Desperate final effort)

• I FEE[L G]REAT (25A: "That was rejuvenating!")
• SECRE[T P]LOTS (39A: Cabal's schemes)

[Y/C] AR [D/E] ("yardcare") (50D: Mowing, mulching, raking, etc.)

[B/L] OA [T/D] ("boat load") (64D: Ton of cargo)

• HAPP[Y C]AMPERS (49A: They've got no complaints)
• CIN[DE]R[BL]OCK (63A: Masonry unit)
• CONCER[T D]ATES (83A: Listings on a band T-shirt)

[S/H] EL [F/P] ("self-help") (92D: Where "The Four Agreements" and "The Five Love Languages" may be shelved)

• TEXA[S H]OLD 'EM (90A: Popular poker variant)
• OUT O[F P]LACE (107A: How a misfit might feel)

[H/W] AR [D/E] ("hardware") (94D: Most merchandise at Ace and True Value)

• BIRT[H W]EIGHT (93A: Baby book datum)
• UNREA[D E]MAILS (109A: Inbox zero targets)

Word of the Day: HELEN Frankenthaler (46A: Abstract Expressionist Frankenthaler) —

[Mauve District, 1966]

Helen Frankenthaler (December 12, 1928 – December 27, 2011) was an American abstract expressionist painter. She was a major contributor to the history of postwar American painting. Having exhibited her work for over six decades (early 1950s until 2011), she spanned several generations of abstract painters while continuing to produce vital and ever-changing new work. Frankenthaler began exhibiting her large-scale abstract expressionist paintings in contemporary museums and galleries in the early 1950s. She was included in the 1964 Post-Painterly Abstraction exhibition curated by Clement Greenberg that introduced a newer generation of abstract painting that came to be known as color field. Born in Manhattan, she was influenced by Greenberg, Hans Hofmann, and Jackson Pollock's paintings. Her work has been the subject of several retrospective exhibitions, including a 1989 retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and been exhibited worldwide since the 1950s. In 2001, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts.

Frankenthaler had a home and studio in Darien, Connecticut. (wikipedia)

• • •

Wow. Exhausting just to explain and type out that theme. Like many architectural marvels whose distinguishing characteristics are solely architectural, this one left me a little cold. It does its thing, repeatedly, and ... that's that. There's no wordplay or cleverness beyond the puzzle title. I kept waiting for a revealer that never came. Eventually I realized that the title itself was the revealer. Was it easy for you to grasp the meaning of the title, even after you understood what was physically going on in the grid? I think it's pretty self-evident, but can see even a regular solver being pretty lost. But I don't know, maybe the meaning of "Nuclear Fusion" was transparent to everyone—once you figured out the theme, of course. Before that? Woof, good luck. Chaos! And even if you went looking for a revealer clue to help you out, as I've already said, there was none to be found. So you really had to hack at this thing to get it to reveal its mysteries. I did, anyway. I was well into the grid before I understood what was happening. From where I was sitting, at first it looking like the "H" was missing from "ISLAN[D-H]OPPED" and the "HEAT' was missing from "DEAD HEAT." The next themer that I "got" was all the way down the west side at TEXA[S H]OLD 'EM, where, once again, it looked like an "H" was missing in the Across (TEXAS OLD 'EM!) and the four-letter "H" word (in this case, the HELP from SELF HELP) was missing from the Down. So I thought it was an "H"-related theme ... and with the title being "Nuclear Fusion," I thought maybe the "H" was supposed to be Hydrogen. Seriously, I thought that. It seemed ... logical, at the time. Logical-ish. Not sure when or how I finally realized what the entire gimmick was (shared core in the Downs, double-letters for the crosses of the first and last squares of those Downs). I just know it was a slog getting there. Once I got there, the puzzle got easier. I wish it had been more interesting. The puzzle is impressive, in its way, but in the end its impressiveness is purely structural, which left me a little cold.

[45A: Dooley Wilson's role in "Casablanca"]

[Sam plays it, and plays it again, but no one ever says "Play it again, Sam"]

The puzzle played about as hard as a Sunday should play, I think. The theme might've been a little harder than usual to suss out, but the rest was very doable, while not being ridiculously easy. There were lots of non-theme answers that gave me at least a little bit of trouble. "HOLY ___"! So many options. Moley, Moses, Toledo, Cow, Smokes, etc. Couldn't think of the one that fit until I got a few crosses (3D: "Mamma mia!"). Both "SO MAD" and "SO EXCITED" took some doing. I don't really get why the "SO MAD" clue is in brackets (34A: ["Unbe-frickin-lievable!"]). Without the brackets ... it makes sense. Or is "SO MAD" a state of being as opposed to an actual exclamation? Seems awkward, but OK. CBD OIL took some effort, for sure, as I wanted a word, but then got an initialism, but then got both an initialism and a word! Twofer! (63D: Extract said to promote relaxation). The LAB / BANG bit stumped me for a bit, too. I guess I've heard a studio called a "LAB" (108D: Slang term for a recording studio), but if I've heard a "!" called a BANG, I don't remember it. I can infer it from the portmanteau "interrobang," which is a fusion of a question mark and exclamation point: 

But I've only ever referred to an exclamation point as an "exclamation point." Somehow I thought a PALISADE was a walkway and not a 54A: Defensive fortification, so that one took a little effort. My cabal had SECRET PLANS before they had SECRET PLOTS. And I think I had a CREAM EGG before I had a CREME EGG (84D: Cadbury confection). I did manage to remember who Renée RAPP was today (she was "Word of the Day" fairly recently), so that's nice. Nice for my brain, that it's not leaking All the new information it takes in. The one thing I truly don't understand in this puzzle is the clue on 1-Down. [Locks up?] = HAIR??? Obviously "locks" = "HAIR," but what the hell is this "up" business? I had UPDO in there at first, but the doubling up of "UP" made me think "well that ain't right." If "Locks" = HAIR (and it does), then I don't know what "up" is doing here. Seems entirely extraneous. I see that the clue wants to do a cheeky prison-related misdirect, but ... is the idea that you HAIR is "up" on your head!?!?!? If that's it, wow is that bad. People have HAIR on their damned feet. Come on, now ... It's true no one has "Locks" of HAIR on their feet, because locks appear only on the head ... which is why, as I say, you do not need the "up"—where else are locks going to be but "up" on your head?! These "?" clues have to land!

Bullets:

• 20A: ___ pasta (rhyming fusion dish) (RASTA) — easy, and it's got "fusion" in there (nice callback to the theme), but I wish the clue had given me any indication of what this dish actually consists of. I would've guessed something to do with jerk chicken, and apparently that is mostly correct. 
• 59A: Fatty tuna, at a sushi bar (TORO) — remembered this one today! (with a little nudge from the "T"). With two types of TORO already occupying my brain (the Spanish "bull," the snowblower brand), I figured I was doomed never to make a third meaning stick, but apparently, sticking hath occurred. More good news for my aging brain.

• 115A: Heavy metal instrument in Verdi's "Il Trovatore" (ANVIL) — cute pun on "heavy metal" (briefly tried to imagine someone playing Verdi on an electric guitar). That SW corner seems potentially treacherous, with not only this slightly odd clue on ANVIL, but an ANI / NIETO crossing that might catch non-Spanish-speaking non-jewelry fans flat-footed (111D: Alex and ___ (jewelry company) / 119A: Grandchild of un abuelo)
• 3D: "Mamma mia!" ("HOLY CANNOLI!") — speaking of Mamma Mia! ([cracks knuckles], watch this segue...), I had guest writers for the Friday and Saturday blog posts this week (thanks, Eli and Rafa!) because earlier this weekend I was in NYC seeing the new Broadway production of Death of a Salesman at the Winter Garden Theatre. I read in the playbill that the Winter Garden was where Cats ran for a mind-boggling 18 years (1982-2000), and that Cats was then immediately followed by ... Mamma Mia!, which also ran for an absurdly long time (2001-2013). So basically, for over three decades at the end of the 20th century and into the 21st, the Winter Garden was home to just two shows: Cats and Mamma Mia! The Winter Garden is a lovely theater, and this production of Death of a Salesman (starring Nathan Lane, Laurie Metcalf, Christopher Abbott and Ben Ahlers) was truly moving. Turns out crossword constructor Rebecca Goldstein was there on the same night! (I ran into her in line). I got to go backstage after the show—Laurie Metcalf is a crossword enthusiast and was gracious enough to invite me. Penelope and I got to see the stage up close and talk to Laurie for a bit. Needless to say, the whole evening was a genuine thrill. 

[Making claw-like gestures in the air, totally normal]

• 75D: Crown and ___ (alliterative bar order) (COKE) — Crown (Royal) is a Canadian whisky. COKE is ... well, presumably you know. I've never heard of Crown & COKE, only Jack & COKE, but the COKE part was easy to get. Apparently COKE & Fernet BRANCA is a really popular cocktail in Argentina (93D: Fernet- ___ (Italian digestif brand)). 
• 33D: Evil counterpart in an 1886 novella (HYDE) — counterpart to whom, you might ask? Well I'm not telling. OK, it's Siegfried (just kidding—Siegfried's evil counterpart was ROY) 

That's all for today. I'll see you next time. And thanks to Eli and Rafa for doing such a bang-up job with the Friday and Saturday write-ups, respectively!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Fashion designer Carolina / SUN 2-15-26 / Duchess of ___ (noted Spanish title) / Certain public transit network / ___ Winter, basketball coach who famously innovated the "triangle offense" / Photo-editing technique used to create a smooth transition / Video game character aptly celebrated in Mar. 10 / Made younger-looking in an editing studio, say / Reality TV franchise created by Tyra Banks / Science-and-nature magazine familiarly / Sarcastic response to a show-off / Horn contents at a Viking feast

Constructor: Michael Lieberman and Rebecca Goldstein

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "Good to the Last Drop" — theme answers "drop" (merging with separately clued Down answers) just after the letter string "HERE," as hinted at by the revealer, IT'S ALL DOWNHILL FROM HERE (73A: "Things are only going to get worse" ... or a hint to answering the seven italicized clues in this puzzle):

Theme answers:

• BLOW TO SMITHEREENS (24A: Completely destroy with a blast)
• MOTHER EARTH (27A: Gaia, by another name)
• TEACHER EDITION (40A: Version of a textbook designed for instruction)
• FEATHER EDGE (96A: Photo-editing technique used to create a smooth transition)
• ETHEREAL (93A: Delicate, as beauty)
• AT THE REAR (123A: In back)
• IS THAT ALL THERE IS? (125A: "Wait, are we done?")

Word of the Day: TEX Winter (60A: ___ Winter, basketball coach who famously innovated the "triangle offense") —

Morice Fredrick "Tex" Winter (February 25, 1922 – October 10, 2018) was an American basketball coach and innovator of the triangle offense, an offensive system that became the dominant force in the National Basketball Association (NBA) and resulted in 11 NBA Championships with the Chicago Bulls in the 1990s and the Los Angeles Lakers in the 2000s. He was a head coach in college basketball for 30 years before becoming an assistant coach in the NBA. He was an assistant to Phil Jackson on nine NBA championship teams with the Chicago Bulls and the Los Angeles Lakers. Winter was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2011. In 2016, the NBA created the annually presented Tex Winter Assistant Coach Lifetime Impact Award in his honor. (wikipedia)

• • •

This one rides entirely on the revealer. It's a clever, extremely literal use of the phrase "IT'S ALL DOWNHILL FROM HERE"—it got a big "aha" out of me, for sure—but the theme itself is very one-note, with nothing particularly interesting or funny or clever to show you. Words contain the letter string "HERE," and after "HERE," they head ... down. Over and over and over (seven times). Kind of a shrug, and an easy one at that (once you know the "HERE"s are out there, you're basically given those four letters for free every time you see an italicized clue). Obviously the execution of this theme involves some intricate architecture. Those themers not only have to drop after the "HERE," but they have to merge seamlessly into Down answers. But from a solving standpoint, filling in those answers just wasn't that interesting. There's just not enough cleverness or humor to carry this one over a huge Sunday-sized grid (slightly oversized at 22 wide). It all works fine, but aside from the revealer, it lacked pop. My main feeling at the end was that it was all kind of dull. And, relatedly, once again, the puzzle was terribly easy. I've got red ink here and there on my grid print-out (signifying various snarl-ups), but it's pretty sparse, and none of the snarl-ups held me up for very long. The puzzle had just one answer that seemed particularly original, but sadly it was one of the answers I liked least: WEED TEA. I am clearly behind on the whole THC beverage craze (my only experience with edibles being sleep gummies). WEED TEA? It's really called that? Yeah, it looks like "cannabis tea" is indeed sometimes called WEED TEA. I wish that answer did something for me. I needed something in this puzzle to do something for me. I have to give that answer credit for trying, at least. The rest of the grid just kind of lies there. RESPELLED? Hmm. I'm making a very grimacey face right now just looking at that word. You will be shocked (shocked, I say!) to discover that both WEED TEA and RESPELLED are debuts. I'll say it for the billionth time: Not All Debuts Are Good™. But if it's WEED TEA vs. RESPELLED, well then, WEED TEA wins by TKO, for sure. 

By far the hardest part of the puzzle for me was this little knot in the upper middle, where (off of "-IT-") I had written in BITE for 47A: Sharpness (WITS). This left me with TRAM BAY in the cross (26D: Certain public transit network), which I was on the point of rationalizing: "You gotta keep the trams somewhere, I guess." Since "bay" has various architectural / structural meanings ("bomb bay," "cargo bay," etc.), I was ready to accept TRAM BAY ... but the clue says [Certain public transit network] and TRAM BAY (if such a thing existed) seemed like it would be *part* of a network, not the network itself. Annnnnyway, I left the mistake in place and would have kept it there til the end if it weren't for the unlikely help of U.S. STEEL (37D: World's first billion-dollar corporation). I thought, "that's gotta be U.S. STEEL," and a couple of crosses confirmed it, but I had "USE-" at the beginning (because I still had "BITE" for 47A: Sharpness). Eventually U.S. STEEL became undeniable, and after a second or so of trying to make BITS work for 47A: Sharpness, I took out the "B" from TRAM BAY and TRAM-AY / -ITS became TRAMWAY / WITS. Maybe I've heard the term TRAMWAY before but I don't know that I've ever been anywhere with a TRAMWAY. Disneyland, maybe? No, wait, trams are like streetcars or trolley cars? Public transport that runs on a network of rails integrated right into the urban environment. Well, I've been to San Francisco, and I've been on cable cars (which are a type of "tram"), so I guess I have seen a TRAMWAY. I don't remember anyone's calling it that. Thanks to wikipedia, I now know that San Francisco (where I was born) was the first city to operate cable trams, and Dunedin, NZ (where my wife grew up) was the second. Clearly we were fated to be married! Brought together by public transportation history! Ah, destiny! Happy belated Valentine's Day, everybody!

The other toughish part for me was FEATHER EDGE, a term I don't really know as I don't spend a lot of time editing photos. I put the "HERE" into that answer and it did virtually nothing for me, even after I got the "EDGE" bit (from WEDGE) (91D: Shoe with a thick sole). The impossible (for me) clue on ALBA (104A: Duchess of ___ (noted Spanish title)) and the very weird colloquial clue on "ABOUT TO" (98D: "Next on my list"), kept the FEATHER EDGE corner (SW) dicey there for a bit. But then (for the first time in my life) MARIO came to the rescue! Usually I'm tripping over myself trying to answer clues about the vast Mario Universe (about which I know nothing except what the puzzle tells me), but today, I got that MARIO clue easily (110D: Video game character aptly celebrated in Mar. 10). I don't think I've ever been so happy (or happy at all) to see a MARIO-related clue. MARIO ... MAR10 (i.e. Mar. 10, i.e. 3/10) ... you see the resemblance. Very cute. 

Bullets:

• ___ Winter, basketball coach who famously innovated the "triangle offense" (TEX) — I'm gonna dispute "famously" here. When you say "triangle offense," I say Phil Jackson. Phil Jackson ran the triangle offense "famously." This TEX guy may have "innovated" it, but I'm not sure "famously" applies, since this is the first I'm hearing of him. He was Jackson's assistant coach on nine championship teams (all six Bulls championships plus the Lakers' threepeat of 2000-02).
• 105A: Made younger-looking in an editing studio, say (DE-AGED) — a very real and (to me) very creepy thing. I associate the process with Scorsese's The Irishman, for which DeNiro and Pacino and Pesci were all digitally DE-AGED in order to play their younger selves.

• 107A: Reality TV franchise created by Tyra Banks (TOP MODEL) — as an enthusiastic non-watcher of so-called "Reality TV," I only know the names of shows from hearing them discussed ... wherever. I really thought this show was called America's Next TOP MODEL. Where am I getting that from? Oh ... well, that is its name. TOP MODEL is just how it's known familiarly (also ANTM, put that in your grid and smoke it!). Really could've used a "familiarly" here. But knowing the full name of the show made getting the partial name of the show pretty easy, actually.
• 62D: N.Y.C. neighborhood that's home to the Grey Art Museum (NOHO) — should've made "Grey Art Museum" my Word of the Day because that name meant absolutely nothing to me. You tell me "N.Y.C. neighborhood" and it's four letters, I'm going SOHO, maybe NOHO. So I waited for the cross. No problem. I've been to a lot of N.Y.C. museums, but I've never even heard of the Grey. Ah, I see, it's NYU's art museum. It's called the Grey Art Museum because of a 1973 gift of one thousand works from someone named Abby Weed Grey. So there's some more WEED for you, if you're into that.

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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The Rock's signature W.W.E. move / SAT 11-1-25 / Controversial Richard Serra sculpture once seen in N.Y.C.'s Foley Square / Materialistic type of the 1980s / Campus opening? / Prez with a V.P. nicknamed "Cactus Jack" / Conflicts waged on behalf of third-party powers / Number of Spanish provincias that touch Portugal / "I'll think about this and decide later" grouping

Constructor: Michael Lieberman

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: TILTED ARC (17A: Controversial Richard Serra sculpture once seen in N.Y.C.'s Foley Square) —

Tilted Arc was a controversial public art installation by Richard Serra, displayed in Foley Federal Plaza in Manhattan from 1981 to 1989. It consisted of a 120-foot-long (37 m), 12-foot-high (3.7 m) solid, unfinished plate of rust-covered COR-TEN steel. Advocates characterized it as an important work by a well-known artist that transformed the space and advanced the concept of sculpture, whereas critics focused on its perceived ugliness and saw it as ruining the site. Following an acrimonious public debate, the sculpture was removed in 1989 as the result of a federal lawsuit and has never been publicly displayed since, in accordance with the artist's wishes. [...] The post-minimalist artwork was designed and constructed in 1981. Exemplifying Serra's minimalist, conceptual style, Tilted Arc was a solid, unfinished plate of COR-TEN steel, 120 feet (37 m) long, 12 feet (3.7 m) tall, and 2.5 inches (6.4 cm) thick. As its name suggests, it was slightly tilted. The steel rusted over time.

 

Placed in the Federal Plaza, the work bisected the space, blocking views and paths of those who frequented the plaza. Serra said of the design, "The viewer becomes aware of himself and of his movement through the plaza. As he moves, the sculpture changes. Contraction and expansion of the sculpture result from the viewer's movement. Step by step, the perception not only of the sculpture but of the entire environment changes."

For Serra, an important part of the work's meaning was that it would interact with the commuter passing through the plaza, a location usually passed through quickly on the way to somewhere else. This would subsequently become important as the basis for Serra's designation of the work as site-specific. (wikipedia)

• • •

Another proper (i.e. appropriately challenging) Saturday, hu(rr/zz)ah! True, I had to put up with a couple of answers that were just two random words to me, answers where, if you'd shown them to me yesterday, I'd've been like "yes, those are two words I recognize, but why are they next to each other?" But at least one of those answers (TILTED ARC) was something I was actually happy to learn about, so I'm not that mad at it, and the other (PEOPLE'S ELBOW) ... shrug (27A: The Rock's signature W.W.E. move). First I'm hearing of it, don't care, will forget about it tomorrow, but no harm done. With that answer and EPIC Games (??) (51A: ___ Games (Fortnite company)), I am reminded that not all crossword answers and clues are written Just For Me. On Saturday in particular, I can just deal. And I did. It's always easier to take the stuff you don't know (or like) when a grid offers you so many other wonderful things. The long answers in the corners are all lovely. None of them feel like filler, and a few of them really stand out (MAYBE PILE! PROXY WARS! MOM FRIEND!). Then there's the alliterative power of the middle of the grid, a series of powerful plosives, "PASS IT ON" and PONIED UP and BEYOND PARODY (I guess PEOPLE'S ELBOW is part of that mid-grid "P" Parade as well). There are 16 "P"s in this damned grid. Is that a lot? That seems like a lot? Ha, yes, in terms of "P" content, it is tied for 5th in the Shortz Era (excluding Sundays). The champion is Byron Walden's Monday, Oct. 10, 2022 puzzle with 20 "P"s! But that was a themed puzzle where six "P"s were baked in). In fact, all the puzzles ahead of this one in "P" content have "P"s as part of their theme, which makes today's puzzle the "P" champion, Themeless Division, edging out a Hoang-Kim Vu themeless from last year. Hey, did you know that this past Monday's puzzle (10/27, SIDE EFFECTS) set a record for "F"s!? 14 "F"s! OK, I'll get out of the weeds now. Anyway, a passel of "P"s kept today's puzzle pulsing with pep.

Bunch of initial errors today, but one in particular stands out because of how certain I was of its correctness and how proud I was of (I thought) seeing right through the wordplay. I'm talking of course (of course?) about 18A: Campus opening? I had the "H" and instantly and confidently thought "Ha, that's HARD C!" Because the "opening" (first letter) of "campus" is a HARD C (unlike the soft "C" of, say, "cell"). Nice try, puzzle! Can't fool me. Only you apparently can because the answer is HIPPO (as in HIPPOcampus, the brain component). If anyone else made the "HARD C" error, please know that my hand is up awaiting your high-five. Don't leave me hanging.

Other mistakes: I wrote in PERM before PEDI (23A: Salon service, for short) and EATEN before EAT IN (28D: Put away some groceries?)—my rationale on that last one was admittedly flimsy. "He has put away some groceries," "he has EATEN some groceries." That might have worked for [Put away, as some groceries?] but as written, EAT IN is the better answer, I admit. EATEN gave me -EE for the end of YUPPIE (i.e. YUPPEE!?) and I was like "that cannot be how you spell that" (38A: Materialistic type of the 1980s). True. Otherwise, no more outright errors except the predictable PREENS before PRIMPS and the far less predictable YELLEN before YELICH (whomst amongst us has not confused Fed Chairs and Baseball MVPS!?).

Never heard of ELISE Mertens, I don't think (2D: Mertens of tennis). Getting rid of cable television means that I'm a lot less sports-aware than I once was. I used to have ESPN on in my house by default much of the time, but no more, and so names, even in sports that I do pay attention to (like baseball—sorry Christian YELICH!) don't work their way into my brain as easily. One word that apparently worked its way out of my brain today was AGOUTIS, an animal I know (or knew) exclusively from crosswords (35A: Only mammals that can crack Brazil nut shells with their teeth). Seems like it's been a long time since I've seen it. I had that -TIS ending and thought "COATIS? COAATIS!?" But no, an agouti is a little mouse-like creature ... sorry, a biggish mouse-like creature (i.e. rodent) of South America. I think I've covered all the things I absolutely didn't know today. It's a solid handful, but not enough to bring me down. This is what's cool about crosswords. You can be ignorant as hell and still get to the finish line through the magical power of "crosses."

[AGOUTI(S)]

What else?:

• 10A: Like some on-the-go purchases (IN-APP) — I get that apps are found on mobile devices, which are portable, but I don't really get the "on-the-go" part of this. I can make IN-APP purchases just sitting on my couch.
• 19A: "Read Me" readers (USERS) — at first I thought this was the Neal Stephenson novel Read Me, but that book is actually called REAMDE, which I really should've remembered (it is presumably a mash up of the phrase "Read Me"). When my sister and I first discovered the book (after I read its sequel, Fall) we couldn't stop saying it. REAMDE. REAMDE. It's fun to say.

• 9D: Greek goddess whose name becomes a Mexican beer if you change the first letter to T (HECATE) — thank god I knew the goddess (and the beer) because I could easily have ended up with a controversial sculpture called the TILTED ARM or TILTED ARK (ooh ... did anyone end up with TILTED ARK? That seems at least remotely plausible, since HEKATE is spelled that way sometimes.
• 52A: Speculative venture (FLIER) — I use the phrase "take a flier on ..." more than any person should. And every time I do, I feel like "am I making this up? Is this a thing people actually say?" Thanks to this puzzle for confirming that yes, someone uses FLIER in this way.
• 8D: Toyota models from 1978 to 1999 (TERCELS) — probably helps if you lived through (and drove through) that era. I can see how this answer crossing TILTED ARC might've caused some confusion for some (especially younger) people.
• 11D: "___ am your father (often-misquoted film line) ("NO, I") — I thought the misquote was "LUKE, I am your father." So I'm confused. Wait ... OK, now I'm realizing that I'm confused because the puzzle has given us the actual line and not the misquote (which is what I am familiar with). In my head, the clue was asking for the misquote, and I knew "LUKE, I am your father" was a misquote, so ... I got turned around. OK, it all makes sense now. Phew. (I'll admit—I didn't know what the real quote was—it's no fun to say "NO, I am your father!" in the Vader voice. You need the "LUKE" part for context, and for the fun of holding the "U" in LUKE for an extra-long time).
• 57D: Prez with a V.P. nicknamed "Cactus Jack" (FDR) — never saw this clue, and thank god. Cactus Jack!? No idea. It turns out FDR's veep, John Nance Garner, got his nickname because he fervently supported the prickly pear cactus as the Texas state flower when he was in the state legislature. Despondent over the fact that the cactus lost out to the bluebonnet, Garner went on to console himself with the vice presidency.

[winner]

[loser]

Happy November (the best month!). See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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❤️ Support this blog ❤️: 

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✏️ Upcoming Crossword Tournaments ✏️

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Read more...