Famed actress who portrayed Queen Christina in 1933's "Queen Christina" / SUN 6-29-26 / ___ fresca (refreshing Latin American beverage) / "Mighty" Mudville batter / "Runaway Bride" actress Wilson

Constructor: Mike Hobin

Relative difficulty: Pretty Easy

THEME: All-In-Clue-sive — The theme answers contain circled letters, and are all clued as "Apt clue for the circled letters". The answers serve as clues for the circled letters.

Word of the Day: CHER (65D: Entertainer who doesn't sound very selfish) —nothing stood out as unknown to me, so I'm highlighting an icon for my mom, who has loved Cher her entire life. 

Cher^[b] (/ʃɛər/ ^ⓘ SHAIR; born Cheryl Sarkisian,^[a] May 20, 1946) is an American singer, actress and television personality. Dubbed the "Goddess of Pop", she is known for her androgynous contralto voice, bold visual presentation and multifaceted career, while cultivating a screen persona that mirrors her public image by often portraying strong-willed and outspoken women. An influential figure in popular culture, her continual reinvention has fueled multiple comebacks over a career spanning more than six decades.

• • •

Welcome back to another Eli Weekend Day! Sunday solving on the phone is always an adventure, because the size of the grid means I almost always have a typo at the end, and finding it is much harder than usual. But even with that and my bandaged thumb, I finished under 10 minutes, so I'm calling this one easy. It's a theme that feels familiar, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Let's see what we're working with here. 

Theme answers:

Since these are all clued the same way, I'm going to write out the answers and the corresponding word from the circled letters.

• 22A: TOP RANKING ROYAL (KING)
• 29A: TOLKIEN TREE CREATURE (ENT)
• 46A: NINE TIMES OUT OF TEN (OFTEN)
• 63A: PACIFIST'S RENOUNCEMENT (FISTS)
• 84A: OUR HOME NEAR THE SUN (EARTH)
• 99A: CAST A REALLY LONG LOOK (STARE)
• 110A: MOUSE ERADICATOR (CAT)

So, I have some nits to pick. From a consistency perspective, I would have liked to see the circled letters span multiple words consistently (or be contained within a single word consistently, though that's admittedly less impressive), but I get that that would be incredibly difficult. I do appreciate that the "answer" words always change the meaning from the circled letters. But the wording of some of these answers really strains credulity. Crossword cluing is something of a wild west, but even as an amateur, I can't imagine an editor letting some of these fly. 22A is odd wording, but not really a problem. I think 29A works well, and might be my favorite of the bunch (I do love an Entmoot).

46A is solid, if a little bland. The trouble for me is really the next three. 63A is really straining the pairing. Do pacifists renounce fists, like, in general? Do pacifisit bros not fist bump? For 84A, having to describe our location as "near the sun" is a strain. There's two rocks closer (at least that's what 90s sitcoms led me to believe). And the word "really" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in 99A, which makes it feel less satisfying. 110A is kind of ridiculous, but in a fun way. I like picturing a cat death metal band called Mouse Eradicator. So, I guess the theme is a bit of a mixed bag for me. Solid, clean, occasionally fun, but it doesn't all hold up to scrutiny. But who besides me is really scrutinizing?

Outkast (106A) intermission!

The fill didn't stand out to me too much, but that also means it didn't irk me too much. Sometimes that's all you can ask for. Most of the short stuff felt fine. I'll call out KEN (8D: "I'll take 'Crossword Clues' for $2,000, please, ____!") for the purely selfish reason that I auditioned for Jeopardy a couple of weeks ago. It's my 5th or 6th time through the audition process, so I'm not getting too excited yet, but maybe some good crossword blog energy will help.

Jennings, you magnificent bastard. I read your book! (I'm not associating Ken with Rommel in any way, I just thought the quote would be fun).

As you can see from that picture, I also can relate to 14A: Unlocked (BALD). The only 2 answers I marked as "Boo" in my notes are MADE PAR (47D: Did as expected on the links) and UNSHUT (104A: Ajar, say). Made Par is probably fine, I just hear "shot par" way more frequently. And I have a bit of a golf aversion these days, but that's a me problem. Unshut just feels off. I also noticed that the clue for APE (45A: Goon) is duped in the clue for EGAN (70D: Jennifer who wrote "A Visit From the Goon Squad"). I'm not the most anti-dupe advocate in Crossworld, but there's a million ways to clue "Ape" and this could have been avoided.  

On a Sunday, I feel like this was all acceptable. Not necessarily ideal, but acceptable. I guess you could say the puzzle "made par." Nope, still don't like it. The puzzle shot par.

Stray Thoughts and Simpsons GIFs:

• 113D: Pi follower (RHO)  — When I was memorizing the Greek alphabet, this pairing was always "pyro" in my head. And since I was a nerd growing up in the 90s, I would picture this:

• 58A: Corp. worker concerned with employee development (HR REP) — This has not always been my experience in corporate America. Many HR departments seem far more concerned with protecting the company & CEO at all costs.
• 70D: Jennifer who wrote "A Visit From the Goon Squad" (EGAN) — Our previous dog Maeve would go through phases of wildly excited behavior that we called "goonies." That eventually evolved into saying we were getting a visit from the Goon Squad. I'm looking forward to what inside jokes will evolve with Huckleberry (see yesterday's post).
• 103D: Video game brother (LUIGI) - Someone posted this GIF on my timeline once, and now it forever peers into my soul:

• 100D: Patty or Selma, to Bart and Lisa (AUNT) — The puzzle decided to do my job for me today.

That's all from me for now. Enjoy your Sunday!

Signed, Eli Selzer, False Dauphin of CrossWorld

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Weakens in video game lingo / SUN 4-16-23 / 2020 movie lead-in to land / Flawed but relatable protagonist / Drum also known as a tumbadora / Giant things in the 1954 sci-fi film Them / One of Randall's daughters on This is Us

Constructor: Mike Hobin

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: "Bring Your 'A' Game" — familiar phrases containing words that start with "A" are clued wackily, as if the the "A" were a standalone word [or ... familiar phrases containing the standalone definite article "A" are clued wackily, as if the "A" were not a standalone word ... sigh]:

Theme answers:

• AWARD OF THE STATE (24A: Lottery prize?)
• BRUSHED A SIDE (30A: Painted 25% of the house?)
• ABRIDGE TOO FAR (54A: Make one's long story overly short?)
• HALF A WAKE (66A: Just the refreshments, not the viewing?)
• ATONE POEM (68A: Ode to reparation for sin?)
• A CUTE TRIANGLE (85A: One darling percussion instrument?)
• AHEAD OF STEAM (104A: Where stealth is found in the dictionary?)
• SLOWLY GREW A PART (116A: Successfully used Rogaine?)

Word of the Day: ALPEN (105D: Muesli brand) —

Weetabix cereals in the UK created Alpen muesli cereal in 1971. Alpen is a whole grain muesli cereal consisting of rolled oats, fruits and nuts.

In the UK, Alpen has been a staple on British shelves since the 1970s, accounting for 3% of the UK and Ireland breakfast cereal sales in 2003. It appeared in the early 1970s in Canada and then in the US in the 1990s after Weetabix established a partnership with natural foods manufacturer, Barbara's Bakery.

In North America, Alpen No Added Sugar and Alpen Original are mainstays in U.S. natural food stores and Canadian grocery stores. In the UK, Weetabix sells Alpen in four varieties. Alpen is exported to other countries in several varieties. (wikipedia)

• • •

[120A: 2020 movie lead-in to "land"] 

OOF, indeed. Look, if you only solve the Sunday puzzle, I need you to know that Saturday's puzzle was good and Thursday's puzzle was good and that this outlet really does publish good puzzles on a reasonably regular basis. Just ... not on Sundays. I keep waiting for someone, anyone, to break the dismal streak of bloody Sundays, but ... looks like I'm waiting another week. I can't believe there's this significant a dearth of solid Sunday submissions. What even is this theme? It doesn't even follow its own rules, as far as I can tell. The things in the grid are supposed to be real answers, and the cluing is supposed to make them wacky, except ... several of the "real" answers are total cheats. TONE POEM is definitely a thing, but A TONE POEM is nothing at all not at all at all at all. You just threw an "A" in there to make ATONE ... whereas with something like BRUSHED ASIDE, yes, the cluing makes it wacky, but the base answer, BRUSHED ASIDE, is a completely solid phrase, not a solid phrase that has had an indefinite article gratuitously added to the front of it. I mean, A [space] TONE POEM, jeez louise that is terrible. You just can't do that. The "A" has to come organically (as in BRUSHED ASIDE) or Not At All. And yet here we have the "A" awkwardly welded onto not just TONE POEM, but HEAD OF STEAM and WARD OF THE STATE as well. ACUTE TRIANGLE, real! So the gimmick works there—you imagine "A" is separate from "CUTE" and bingo, wackiness. Actually, the more I look at these themers, the more confusing it gets. ACUTE gets wacky by breaking the "A" away, whereas "AWARD" gets wacky by fusing "A" and "WARD" together. So you get to wackiness either by imagining the "A" united with *or* broken away from the letters that follow it (the themers alternate "wackiness" methods as you descend the grid) ... and yet every answer is still supposed to look like a Real Thing in the grid, so my point about gratuitous indefinite articles, gratuitous "A"s, still stands. "A BRIDGE TOO FAR" earns its standalone "A," as that's an actual part of the title. But the other standalone "A"s, no way. Forced nonsense. It's a mess, this one. And there's nothing really funny going on here, either. The clues are often just sad. Rogaine helps you "grow a part"? No, it helps you grow hair—whether you "part" it or not is your own business. Simply finishing this puzzle felt like a chore.

Under the "+" column on my puzzle print-out, I have HOT FOR and MASK UP. These are cool, original phrases. They were also the only answers that provided even a modicum of joy today. The theme was ANEMIC, as I say, and the fill was just OK. Not terrible, not noteworthy. Fine. There weren't many trouble spots. Struggled briefly with the ELTON / BLONDS / BOAR bit up top (no idea re: ELTON (28A: Cambridgeshire's historic ___ Hall), and BLONDES, as a noun, is typically spelled with an "E," though perhaps that's because it's typically used as a noun for women. I guess I have seen ALPEN in the grocery aisle before, but yeesh, that seemed slightly obscure (and not at all good). The sides of tic-tac-toe are XS AND OS, not XANDO; no one would ever say that ever ever (77A: Tic-tac-toe sides). Which is why XSANDOS has appeared in the NYTXW ten times and XANDO ... well, this is the third time, but it's really the first time clued this exact way. It's bad. Crossing MOREY and EDENS (neither of them winners), it's especially bad. Could've just gone with LANDO Calrissian or really a bunch of alternative scenarios in that eastern section, but instead we get this awkward garbage, and for what? An "X"? It's bad to get enamored with high-valued Scrabble letters, it really is. 

EGOTISM before EGO TRIP (92D: Narcissist's indulgence). WEEP before WEPT (67D: Shed some tears)—that verb tense ambiguity really slowed me up. So did the STRUM / TURN / EMERALDS bit. TURN was well hidden (80D: Time to go), and EMERALDS, how the hell should I know, I'm not 12 (87D: Rare fins in Minecraft). What is a LECTOR? (49D: Class speaker). It's Latin for "reader," but it seems pretty archaic, especially for any schools in the U.S. I think the puzzle wants it to be a simple substitute for "Lecturer," but I assure you, no one uses that term. I truly hope you had more fun than I did solving this one. It would be hard to have less.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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