Gaelic garment / SUN 8-28-22 / Second caliph of Sunni Islam / Gray-brown flycatchers / Sapa ancient emperor's title / N Sync member who later became a gay rights activist / Rhizome to a botanist / Natural source of glitter / Creatures described as catarrhine from the Latin for downward-nosed

Constructor: Ori Brian

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: "Animal Hybrids" — themers are regular clues with regular answers ... but they are also anagrams of several different kinds of animal [animals given in brackets at end of clues]:

Theme answers:

• BREAK THE ICE (22A: Get a party started? [bee, hare, tick])
• WET BLANKET (28A: Buzzkill [bat, elk, newt])
• PARKING SPACE (34A: A little of a lot? [carp, pig, snake])
• WATERMELON PATCH (47A: Locale of many vines [cat, elephant, worm])
• BATHROOM SCALE (62A: Something you might step on by the shower [cobra, moth, seal])
• "GENERAL HOSPITAL" (78A: Long-running soap opera that debuted in 1963 [ant, gorilla, sheep])
• GLOBE THEATRE (91A: London landmark [beetle, hog, rat])
• GOLDEN GATE (98A: Bridge that's painted International Orange [dog, eel, gnat])

Word of the Day: UMAR (52D: Second caliph of Sunni Islam) —

ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb (Arabic: عمر بن الخطاب, also spelled Omar, c. 583/584 – 644) was the second Rashidun caliph, ruling from August 634 until his assassination in 644. He succeeded Abu Bakr (r. 632–634) as the second caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate on 23 August 634. Umar was a senior companion and father-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. He was also an expert Muslim jurist known for his pious and just nature, which earned him the epithet al-Faruq ("the one who distinguishes (between right and wrong)").

Umar initially opposed Muhammad, his distant Qurayshite kinsman and later son-in-law. Following his conversion to Islam in 616, he became the first Muslim to openly pray at the Kaaba. Umar participated in almost all battles and expeditions under Muhammad, who bestowed the title al-Faruq ('the Distinguisher') upon Umar, for his judgements. After Muhammad's death in June 632, Umar pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr (r. 632–634) as the first caliph and served as the closest adviser to the latter until August 634, when the dying Abu Bakr nominated Umar as his successor.

Under Umar, the caliphate expanded at an unprecedented rate, ruling the Sasanian Empire and more than two-thirds of the Byzantine Empire. His attacks against the Sasanian Empire resulted in the conquest of Persia in less than two years (642–644). According to Jewish tradition, Umar set aside the Christian ban on Jews and allowed them into Jerusalem and to worship. Umar was assassinated by the Persian slave Abu Lu'lu'a Firuz in 644. (wikipedia)

• • •

The theme is oddly decorative here, to the point of being, for the most part, genuinely optional. That is, you don't have to know anything about why there are animals in brackets at the ends of your theme clues. The clues are just normal, straightforward clues, and the answers are normal, straightforward, and (sadly) mostly bland answers. Actually, they're fine answers, but because they aren't really doing anything—because their whole "animal hybrid" nature is a completely non-integral part of the solving experience—they're just like any ordinary answers you might encounter anywhere. Nothing special about them. All the "theme" does is kinda give you an extra hint to the answers of the themers. Like "Here, here's a clue, but if you somehow can't get it from the perfectly ordinary clue, psst, here's a little hint ... but you actually have to *work* a little to figure out what that "hint" is ... so it isn't really a "hint" ... you're probably better off just figuring out the answer from crosses, like you normally would ..." You can see, I hope, how the [bracketed] portion of the theme clues doesn't seem to really know what its purpose is, beyond kinda / sorta giving a little extra hint to solvers, assuming the solver has grokked *how* the animal names are a hint. Sigh. Annnnnyway, there's really nothing there. The [bracketed] part is extraneous to the solving experience. Furthermore, the revealer is extraneous, in the sense that it's redundant. I already figured out what the animals were doing in [brackets] from the Title of The Puzzle. When your revealer contributes no information that isn't already largely provided by the title ... then why is the revealer there at all. CROSSBREEDS doesn't even really make sense, since the animals in [brackets] at the ends of the theme clues aren't really "breeds" so much as "different kinds of animals." Conceptually, this one is kind of a mess. Execution-wise ... it's just blah. May as well be themeless. This one actually has me missing last week's *actual* themeless, which was at least built that way by design.

I weirdly had trouble getting started with this one, mostly because I wasn't understanding how the puzzle was using the word "Gaelic" (or TARTAN, for that matter) (1A: Gaelic garment). I had -ARTA- and still no clue. I think of Gaelic primarily as a language, and when I think of it culturally, I think primarily of Ireland, not Scotland, whereas TARTAN is, in my mind, exclusively a Scottish thing. Also, TARTAN makes me think "pattern" far more than it makes me think "garment." But technically both "Gaelic" and "garment" are used correctly here—I just couldn't process it all, and thought maybe there was a garment called a CARTAN (like ... an Irish caftan??). I also found NOT MANY very hard (6D: A handful). The term "a handful" sounds like something very difficult—specifically, someone very difficult, esp. if that someone is, say, a toddler. "He can be a handful." The idea that "a handful" meant "just a few," i.e. NOT MANY ... that did not occur to me until very late. Beyond that, I had just one significant sticking point, and that was everything in and around and especially including UMAR, which ... wow, OK, that's a new name. I don't even think I've seen the *first* "caliph of Sunni Islam" in the grid before, and you expect me to know the second? That's a big ask, considering that in my 30+ years of solving ...

It looks like the constructor got into a real tight spot with theme answer placement. Things get especially restricted once you decide to run RUNS AMOK in there. You can't do much with that area connecting WATERMELON and BATHROOM unless you do a pretty significant grid tear-down. You can feel the desperation in this tight space, and it's not only because of UMAR. I mean, INRE is in there too, and it's not like that is high-quality fill. I think I would've done whatever I could, including rebuilding the surrounding areas, to get rid of the UMAR / INRE unsightliness. But ... maybe UMAR is a very, very important name that crosswords have unfairly neglected over the years. Lord knows I (continue to) feel that way about OZU and VARDA ...

Bullets:

• 68D: "Beats me" ("I'VE NO IDEA") — so this one is weird because the contraction (unexpectedly?) makes the phrase feel more formal. Like, "beats me" is obviously slangy, but "I HAVE NO IDEA" feels more like what a person who says "beats me" would say, whereas "I'VE NO IDEA" sounds more like what someone who says "Pardon me, have you any Grey Poupon?" would say. 
• 82D: Strong hold (IRON GRIP) — don't love the clue, which is basically just [synonym for iron + synonym for grip], but the answer is one of my favorite things in the grid, along with OVERCOOK, for reasons I don't quite understand myself (70A: Make dry, as salmon).
• 80D: ___ Malnati's, Chicago-style pizza chain (LOU) — absolutely no idea. If it's a chain, it's not a chain anywhere I've lived. A very hard-won three-letter name for me today.
• 54A: Al-___, family of Syrian leaders (ASSAD) — yeah, still war criminals, still in power, still unwelcome in my gridspace
• 113A: Gets around (EVADES) — total kealoa* train wreck, as I got the "V" first and (predictably) wrote in the wrong guess, AVOIDS. Sigh.

Congratulations to my friend Matt Gritzmacher for winning the Lollapuzzoola Crossword Tournament yesterday (Tyler Hinman, champion of many tournaments, many times over, won the online division, son congrats to him as well). I really wish I could've been there. COVID really decimated in-person tournaments, which means that I haven't seen many of my crossword friends in years now. Fingers crossed for a 2023 return to crossword tournament normalcy. It was great to see pics of Matt and his championship trophy.

[That's Matt with Brooke Husic, who constructed the
tournament's apparently lovely and punishing Final Puzzle]

[Pictures stolen from Matt's Twitter feed]

See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

*kealoa = short, common answer that you can't just fill in quickly because two or more answers are viable, Even With One or More Letters In Place. From the classic [Mauna ___] KEA/LOA conundrum. See also, e.g. [Heaps] ATON/ALOT, ["Git!"] "SHOO"/"SCAT," etc.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Boho-chic furniture material / SAT 2-26-22 / Green research site / Moroccan quarter / When doubled a 2010s dance craze / Chief magistrates in Italian history / N.F.L. kicker Graham who payed for 14 teams / Celebrity chef Burrell / Openly discussing one's kinks, say / Use a shuttle, say

Constructor: Ori Brian

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: CLARA Schumann (14A: Pianist/composer Schumann) —

Clara Josephine Schumann ([ˈklaːʁa ˈʃuːman]; née Wieck; 13 September 1819 – 20 May 1896) was a German pianist, composer, and piano teacher. Regarded as one of the most distinguished pianists of the Romantic era, she exerted her influence over a 61-year concert career, changing the format and repertoire of the piano recital from displays of virtuosity to programs of serious works. She also composed solo piano pieces, a piano concerto (her Op. 7), chamber music, choral pieces, and songs.

She grew up in Leipzig, where her father, Friedrich Wieck, was a pianist and teacher, and her mother, Mariane, was a pianist, singer, and piano teacher. She was a child prodigy, trained by her father. She began touring at age eleven, and was successful in Paris and Vienna, among other cities. She married the composer Robert Schumann, and the couple had eight children. Together, they encouraged Johannes Brahms and maintained a close relationship with him. She premiered many works by her husband and by Brahms in public.

After Robert Schumann's early death, she continued her concert tours in Europe for decades, frequently with the violinist Joseph Joachim and other chamber musicians. Beginning in 1878, she was an influential piano educator at Dr. Hoch's Konservatorium in Frankfurt, where she attracted international students. She edited the publication of her husband's work. Schumann died in Frankfurt, but was buried in Bonn beside her husband. (wikipedia)

• • •

It's possible this puzzle has confused SEX-POSITIVE (34A: Openly discussing one's kinks, say) with OVERSHARING, depending on the imagined context, but most other things it seems to get right. It's got a lovely central stack with absolutely solid longer answers slicing through it, and most of the rest of the fill holds up pretty well. The only wincing I did was at the very, very end, when I stepped in that puddle of names at the bottom of the grid. Bad enough to meet Paul RYAN down there (so many RYANs in the world, whyyyyy?), but then to have my final square be the intersection of two names I don't know crossing at a vowel ... bah. Major anticlimax. I don't know why you don't clue at least one of those names, either EVA or ANNE, as someone legitimately famous, or at least from somewhere outside pop culture. Go back in time, go sideways into science or literature, something. There are too many ALLEGEd "celebrity chefs" for me to keep track of. So, you know, keep EVA Noblezada and move ANNE back in time or to some other field. It would be great if ANNE were a much more universally famous person, too. You can clue very famous people in tricky ways, so you don't have to give up difficulty. Nobody likes name soup, particularly short-name soup, so at least draw from very different fields or time periods. Especially when crossing names at a vowel. Luckily, in this case, "A" was the only reasonable guess. I had no idea if "EVE" or "EVA" was correct, but _NNE leaves you with only one plausible option. If I hadn't *finished* here, I probably wouldn't be talking about this moment nearly so much. But how you finish matters, even if where you finish is an unpredictable matter of chance. I can't believe I'm going to advocate for ERA, but I do think ERA / ANNE is better than EVA / ANNE. Ordinary words > short names of not-terribly-famous people crossing at a vowel. "Why are you focusing on these tiny details!?!?!" I know. I just can't dismiss the small stuff as insignificant. Every inch of the puzzle should be thoughtfully and carefully designed, even if many solvers will blow through it in 10 seconds. Plus I'm just generally interested in the kinds of values that drive construction and editorial choices. Putting new people in the puzzle! Good! But I tend to land in the "keep the name count reasonably low" and "don't cross unfamous names at vowels" and "draw from lots of different knowledge bases" camps.

There is only one BATMAN. There are different actors, but just the one man. This is to say, BATMEN, bah (26A: Christian Bale and Val Kilmer, for two). I think BATMEN is a cricket term. Or is that BATSMEN? Anyway, I don't think BATMEN is a thing / are things. If they are real, they probably work not in Bat Caves but ECOLABS, which are also not things. BARMEN are things. Gendered, yes, but their drinks are so tasty. No other clues / answers really bothered me. I quite enjoyed the "what the hell part of speech is this?" cluing on both SEX POSITIVE (34A: Openly discussing one's kinks, say) and SLIM TO NONE (29D: Long). The former clue really looks like it wants to be an -ING-ending present participle, while the latter looks like a jillion things; I thought it had to do with length, or yearning, and then I got the SLIM- part and thought "what does SLIME have to do with it?" and *then* I saw what it was: a phrase related to odds or likelihood. If the odds are long, you might also say they're SLIM TO NONE. Nice. The only difficulty I had today was with the names (SHAYNE, EVA, ANNE), but I also had some good luck with names. For instance, I knew ALAN Watts, who has arguably the least well-known name in the grid, depending on how old you are and what you care about (Watts was one of the great popularizers of Buddhism in America in the last century). I had several moments of hesitation before getting BONOBOS, even with the BON- in place, simply because I couldn't understand how "ours" was being used (27A: Close relatives of ours). Seemed weird for the clue to suddenly take on a first-person persona. . . which made me think "waaaaaaaait a minute, is this gonna be a French animal name!?" ("ours" in French = "bear" / "bears"). 

But no, not relatives of French bears, relatives of human beings—if you've ever heard of BONOBOS, one thing you know is how closely related they are to human beings and the other thing you know is that they are extremely SEX POSITIVE. 

[WARNING: just kidding, it's fine]

Just one explainer today:

• 37A: Use a shuttle, say (TAT) — this is a lace-making term, so different "shuttle" and different "TAT" than you're probably used to encountering in everyday speech

That's all. See you tomorrow, or whenever.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. the "BATMEN of All Nations" existed for a time, in the 1950s, so BATMEN are, or were, a thing, though not in the way the clue imagined. 

January, 1955

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Fashion accessories in a 1940s #1 Dinah Shore hit / WED 1-19-22 / Reposition an icon maybe / DC Comics antiheroine aka Selina Kyle / Essential ingredient in Welsh rarebit / Poppin as a party / Daisy variety also called a marguerite

Constructor: Ori Brian 

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: ___ & ___ — a uniclue xword where all Across/Down answers that share a first letter are part of a "___ & ___" phrase, which is clued just once (in the Across). The "&" part of the answer is implied (i.e. not in the grid):

Theme answers:

• DRAG & DROP (1A: Reposition an icon, maybe)
• STARS & STRIPES (5A: Key inspiration?) (Francis Scott "Key," that is)
• ROCK & ROLL (10A: Genre with a Hall of Fame in Ohio)
• YIN & YANG (27A: Principle of complementary duality)
• SHORT & SWEET (42A: Pleasantly concise)
• MIX & MATCH (51A: Combine, as versatile wardrobe pieces)
• "BUTTONS & BOWS" (59A: Fashion accessories in a 1940s #1 Dinah Shore hit)

Word of the Day: "BUTTONS and BOWS" (59A) —

"Buttons and Bows" is a popular song with music written by Jay Livingstonand lyrics by Ray Evans. The song was published in 1947. The song was written for and appeared in the Bob Hope and Jane Russell film The Paleface and won the Academy Award for Best Original Song. It was originally written with an Indian theme, but was changed when the director said that would not work in the movie. It was a vocal selection on many radio programs in late 1948. It was reprised in the sequel, Son of Paleface, by Roy Rogers, Jane Russell and Bob Hope. In 2004 it finished #87 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs survey of the top tunes in American cinema.

The most popular version of the song was recorded by Dinah Shore in 1947 and reached the charts the following year.^[3] Charting versions of the song were also recorded by The Dinning Sisters, Betty Rhodes, Evelyn Knight, and Betty Garrett the same year. In addition, the song was recorded by Gene Autry and by Geraldo and his orchestra (with vocalist Doreen Lundy). (wikipedia)

• • •

This one went from irksome to easy, but never got anywhere near enjoyable. I was completely put off the puzzle right from the start, maybe even earlier—I knew going in that was a "uniclue" puzzle because for once I actually looked at the "puzzle notes" before solving (in my software, a little message pops up when you start the puzzle to tell you if there are "note"). Same clue for Across and Down is not new and in my experience not pleasant. Normally what happens there is you have to absolutely torture the affected clues to make them work for both the Across and Down portions of the answer, and that's definitely what I thought was going on with this puzzle at first. That is, I thought 1A: Reposition an icon, maybe had two discrete answers, one of which was DRAG and other of which was DROP. It is totally reasonable to have thought this, as those are both plausible as standalone answers for that clue. They're also both semi-awful as standalone answers, so I braced myself for a grid filled with similar clue torture. But just after I finished that corner, I dropped down a section and got YIN & YANG, at which point I realized, "Oh, the Across and Down are linked by "and" and form a single phrase. OK, that's much less painful." Sadly, it's also much less interesting. And it made the remainder of the puzzle a cinch. The only pair that gave me any joy or stood out in any way was "BUTTONS AND BOWS," which ... I don't even know how I know that song. It just floats in my consciousness, probably via some parody somewhere in my childhood. In my head, I hear someone who doesn't actually know the lyrics and so strings together a bunch of sounds and/or nonsense before hitting the title phrase at the end of the chorus [OMG I just found it! It's "Frasier"! I didn't even watch "Frasier" regularly, how do I know the "BUTTONS AND BOWS" episode!? Anyway, see video below]. Dinah Shore had a talk show when I was little, but I was little in the '70s, not the '40s. Reading the wikipedia entry for the song (above), the song becomes less, not more familiar to me. And yet I liked the answer because it wasn't blah like the others. This puzzle is built around a structural stunt that might get an "aha" out of a solver but only the kind that comes from getting the gimmick, not the kind that (also) comes from being delighted.

[you can skip to about the 1:34 mark if you want to get straight to the song part]

Speaking of Dinah Shore, the TV host, TV GUEST is awful. You're a TALK SHOW HOST or TALK SHOW GUEST but TV GUEST. All you have to do is consider RADIO GUEST (!?!?) to see how bad TV GUEST is. A *show* has a guest, a *medium* does not. And to make matters worse, that answer is crossing EAPOE, the nadir of name abbrevs. I have seen his name stylized that way on publications and maybe even in his signature, but it still seems clunky and it looks absolutely ridiculous in the grid, although I do enjoy imagining some small number of solver out there pronouncing it to themselves as a single word, like, "EE-po? ee-AH-po? Who the hell is this ee-AH-po guy??" It's just Edgar Allan (not Allen, don't ever do that, please). I am currently wondering what kind of TV GUEST EAPOE would've made, which is by far the most fun I've had since I started this puzzle. 

Not sure there's anything worth commenting on in the grid, outside the theme. Can we get back to cluing OATS in some way that *doesn't* have to do with where they're grown as a crop. The other day, we learned that Texas was the biggest U.S. producer of OATS. Today, add Russia and Canada to the list of oat-producers. OATS are grown! All over! Not interesting! (sidenote: if you want to see how bad SEO, i.e. Search Engine Optimization, as warped the Googling environment, just search [texas is the largest u.s. producer of these] and look at how many damn clue-bot sites there are now. Page after page after page of clue farms. This was not always so). I studied medieval things during my entire time in grad school and yet still balked at GEST, a little because of GESTE (which is the Fr. spelling, which I saw more often, in phrases like "chanson de GESTE"), but a little because I thought "it's ... not JEST is it? ... no, that's wrong ... right?" I have no spelling confidence any more. Or very little. Anyway, I'd rather see a TV GEST than a TV GUEST. Enjoy your day, see you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Captain Pierce portrayer on old TV / THU 11-18-21 / Its name comes from the Greek for uncuttable / City with slogan big things happen here / Oppressive authority informally / Marcille who won America's Next Top Model / Title character in an '80s sitcom / Cause of some orange fingers

Constructor: Ori Brian

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (probably easier if my version of the puzzle had been formatted correctly)

THEME: series placement — theme clues are lists of three things, all in the same category; arrows point to one of the items in the list, and the answer ends up being a familiar phrase following the pattern [place in the list the arrows are pointing to] + [category of the list], so: 

Theme answers:

• FIRST LADY (16A: --> Di <-- Gaga Godiva) (because the arrows point to "Di," who is the FIRST LADY ... in this list of ladies)
• SECOND-RATE (24A: R.p.m. --> m.p.h. <-- k.p.s.)
• MIDDLE CLASS (36A: Art --> Calculus <-- Spanish)
• THIRD PARTY (52A: Housewarming masquerade --> tailgate <--)
• LAST LAUGH (62A: Ha-ha chortle --> tee-hee <--)

Word of the Day: GAR (40A: Long-snouted fish) —

Gars are members of the family Lepisosteidae which are the only surviving members of Ginglymodi, an ancient holosteian group of ray-finned fish which first appeared during the Triassic, over 240 million years ago. Gars comprise seven living species of fish in two genera that inhabit fresh, brackish, and occasionally marine waters of eastern North America, Central America and Cuba in the Caribbean, though extinct members of the family were more widespread. Gars have elongated bodies that are heavily armored with ganoid scales,^[4]and fronted by similarly elongated jaws filled with long, sharp teeth. Gars are sometimes referred to as "garpike", but are not closely related to pike, which are in the fish family Esocidae. All of the gars are relatively large fish, but the alligator gar (Atractosteus spatula) is the largest – the alligator gar often grows to a length of over 2 m (6.5 ft) and a weight of over 45 kg (100 lb), and specimens of up to 3 m (9.8 ft) in length have been reported. Unusually, their vascularised swim bladders can function as lungs, and most gars surface periodically to take a gulp of air. Gar flesh is edible and the hard skin and scales of gars are used by humans, but gar eggs are highly toxic. (wikipedia)

• • •

I still solve the puzzle in .puz format, even though the NYT doesn't officially distribute it that way anymore. There's a Puzzle Scraper extension on Chrome that you can use ... *anyway* I solve in that format because it's what I've been solving in forever and it's familiar to me and I like it and I don't want to be *forced* to solve in a proprietary app where my data is being mined etc. But today yeah it would've helped to solve in the app because my software couldn't handle the arrows in the theme clues and just rendered them as hyphens, so my lists looked like weird equations, or lists with missing elements. For instance, the FIRST LADY clue looked like this: [— Di— Gaga Godiva] and I thought maybe it was a list of ladies where the FIRST LADY was just ... missing? Weirdly, the arrow problem didn't mess me up nearly as much as it seems like it should have. Once you get that the theme clues are lists of categories, and that the first word refers to placement position, then you can infer the answers pretty well. "Well, those are all rates, so ... and those are all classes, so ... etc." I like the theme concept a lot but I don't get the progression at all. It makes no sense. FIRST SECOND MIDDLE THIRD LAST??? What kind of a list is that? THIRD is in the fourth position. If you are going to go to the trouble of laying out a progression, the progression should make sense. I wouldn't be nearly as annoyed if the themers were in a shuffled order, where there was obviously not supposed to be a progression. But because a progression is so obviously intended (from FIRST to LAST), I find that misplaced THIRD completely intolerable. It's fourth. Your THIRD is fourth. I'm just stating facts here. Baffling.

The fill occasionally hits the crosswordese bottle a little hard (GAR IGOR SLR AYN BAA ALDA ILIA etc.) but it mostly keeps a low profile, and the longer non-theme stuff does a good job of staying interesting, so the puzzle was mostly a pleasure to solve, overall. I don't like the *idea* of a SEMI-NUDE VLOGGER, but I do love those answers alongside one another there (VLOGGER still feels like a term we all fever-dreamed in 2009 that just never disappeared from crosswords, but apparently vlogging is a very popular thing. How do people have time in their days to consume all these things?). OTTAWA / THE MAN / TIDBIT is an oddly appealing set of answers as well. I like it when the mid-range stuff (5-to-7 letters, say) manages to be colorful, rather than merely exist. I have no idea about modeling or most animated movie roles, so EVA and SID were ??? but I had a lot of other proper noun friends to get me by (ALF and ALDA and TED and Alice, I mean ANITA). I feel like I've been a lot of SASS lately. Which got me thinking about ROTI, which has been thriving since the 2010s, as more and more North Americans became familiar with the foods of South Asia. Used to be that ROTI only got clued as French for "roasted." [French roast] and [___ de boeuf] were the most common clues for a long time. You don't get a reference to the flatbread until 2010, and even then it takes a while for that clue to catch on. You don't see it again until 2015, and then a trickle turns into a river, as we've seen ROTI as the flatbread something like a dozen times in the just past three years, five times this year alone, and the French clue for ROTI hasn't been seen at all in over five years. So congrats to ROTI on muscling in and taking over. Expanding the crossword palate! I'm into it. Now I'm hungry. See you all later. Good day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Fictional raiding archaeologist / FRI 8-16-19 / Craft shop item with seemingly redundant name / Best-selling author who used awful lot of commas / Foes of Fido, stereotypically / Hit 2016 film set partly at sea

Constructor: Ori Brian

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (6:05)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: LAD MAG (9A: Maxim, e.g.) —

n

(Journalism & Publishing) a magazine aimed at or appealing to men, focusing on fashion, gadgets, andoften featuring scantily dressed women (thefreedictionary.com)

• • •

The fill here is OK. Nothing I particularly love. Solid C. Fine. Acceptable. Workmanlike—emphasis on the "man" because hoo boy, this thing is comically heavy on testosterone. It's basically muscle cars and AMMO and ... yeah, with the ACNE and the BEER KEGS it's got a very fratty vibe. Also a very ogley vibe, what with the LAD MAGs and Phoebe CATES clued via her role as an iconic image of teenage-boy masturbatory fantasy. There are five ... five! ... different male-gendered words in this grid: MALE (from MALE EGO), LAD, DUDES, MEN (from MAILMEN), and MAN (from MANBUN). It feels like a parody of the fairly typical guy-skewing, exclusionary content that is not untypical of NYT crosswords (considering that they remain overwhelming constructed by male lad dudes). But I don't think the puzzle is having a laugh. I think it's just ... not thinking much about offering a a broader (!) view of the world. I liked seeing ABUELA, and, you know, Jackie JOYNER-Kersee is a cool entry, but even LARA CROFT fits right into the highly sexualized male-gaze vibe of this puzzle. Her sex appeal (particularly to young men) is a huge part of her fame. This is just a fraction of the "Sex Symbol" section of her wikipedia page:

"Publications such as Play, GameTrailers, and PlayStation Magazine listed big breasts as one of the character's most famous attributes. After interviewing players in 1998, Griffiths commented that players regularly mention Croft's breasts when discussing her. In 2008, the character was first and second on two UGO Networks lists of hottest video game characters. GameDaily placed Lara Croft number one on a similar list that same year, and PlayStation: The Official Magazine awarded her honourable mention for Game Babe of the Year." (for more, go here)

The whole "game babe" angle would not have occurred to me were she not (today) swimming in a swamp of dicks up there in the NE. It's good to be aware of the overall balance of answers in your grid, and to correct for ridiculous overrepresentation.


Thought I was going to storm this one, but got significant held up trying and failing to parse DOORDIE (47A: Critical). Also got held up trying to get ADMIT, which just wouldn't come until I had A-MIT, ugh. So that SW corner roughed me up, as did my total inability to understand the basic grammar, let alone the significance, of the clue at 32D: Helps for short people, for short (ATMS). Is "helps" a verb or noun, is "short" a matter of stature or money? I really was thinking "short" as in "small," so even with AT--, I was puzzled. Thought UM, NO was UH, NO, and was ready to accept that ATHS was just some weird short-person-helping thing I didn't know. Luckily, I came to my senses. EROS, also not really a thing I knew. I kept thinking the FILTER of INSTAGRAM FILTER must be wrong because surely this is something to do with EGOS ... but no (34D: Freudian focus). Never think of a reed having "keys," so clue on OBOE threw me. Blanked on the "C" in COB. Still felt on the easy side. Oh, yeah, and lastly, I had no idea (or forgot) that ROGET was a PETER. Had PETER (actually had TETER 'cause I thought 24D: Impertinent sort (SNIP) was a SNIT), and then had no idea. What is this "awful lot of commas"?? That is some weird colloquial phrasing. "Awful." What kind of one-off homespun nonsense is that? Odd.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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1957 Jimmy Dorsey standard / FRI 2-1-19 / Game-changing invention / Cocktail with vodka triple sec lime juice / Where Delaware Minnesota have farmers / College from which Steve Jobs dropped out / Matthews NBA father-and-son duo / Big-box store with slogan Never stop improving

Constructor: Ori Brian

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (7-something but with an error because I spelled it KAMIKAZ*I*)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: WES Matthews (36D: ___ Matthews, either of an N.B.A. father-and-son DUAD I mean duo) —

Wesley Joel Matthews Jr. (born October 14, 1986) is an American professional basketballplayer for the New York Knicks of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for the Marquette Golden Eagles. He is the son of former NBA player Wes Matthews.

• • •

Hello and welcome to Februrary. This grid is pretty nice, but the cluing was nowhere near my wavelength and felt too cutesy and clumsy much of the time. Also, this is (or feels like it is) a Very name-heavy grid, which makes for a very jerky solve, as difficulty toggles jarringly between easy ("BLACK MIRROR") and hard ("SO RARE" (!?!?!) or CECE ... I watched that show for a couple of seasons and still didn't remember her name). I don't mind proper nouns or brand names, but sometimes I think constructors who want to show how hip or current or fresh their grids are tend to lean a little heavily on them. I can't tell if UP THE WAZOO is fresh or quaintly retro, but either way it was a nice surprise. POLICE RAID, much much less nice of a surprise. My biggest struggles came in the NW, which was horrible for me. Horrible. Started there, got nowhere, then finished there, and really thought I was going to get stuck stuck. The two "?"-clue Acrosses at HOUSE RULE and ARMS DEAL just about did me in, as did REED (I got in to REED and still forgot it existed) and especially DUAD, which, honestly, you should turn in your constructor's card for letting that "word" anywhere, *any*where near your grid. The word is DYAD. Man ... DUAD is the kind of answer that risks completely and totally overshadowing your other grid accomplishments, so high is its revulsion factor. Origin of all trouble in the NW was 1A: Dentist's instruction (BITE), where I had OPEN, and only briefly considered that it might be something else, but that "something else" in my mind was SPIT. OVERALL, this is a decent grid with not great clues, and I had medium-level fun (this is kind of a negative review for a Friday, since Fridays are usually The Best).


Five things:

• 16A: Common type of TV news broadcast (LIVE REMOTE) — I keep reading this as LIVER EMOTE, which is fitting since the answer crosses WEEPS (14D: Is overcome with joy, say)
• 24D: Twosome (DUAD) — did I mention how bad DU- ... oh, I did? OK. OK, good.
• 47A: Fishing need, maybe (PERMIT) — inexplicably hard for me. I had it down to -ERMIT and was still wondering whether maybe HERMIT (crab?) was some kind of bait (??)
• 48D: Drink that can cause brain freeze (ICEE) — pretty bold move following up one crossword drink (HI-C) with another crosswordese drink That Rhymes With The First Crosswordese Drink
• 9D: Recurrent theme (TROPE) — here's how bad I wanted MOTIF—I literally just wrote in MOTIF as the correct answer in this bullet point and had to correct it. I finally got traction in this puzzle by blunt force, entering the first thing I could think of for every Down in the NE. Buncha mistakes (including MOTIF), but thankfully ROADIE and ATKINS were right, and that was enough.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Hawks push them / TUE 5-8-18 / Sound of contentment / Animation studio with lamp mascot / C of CS Forester / Relative of raccoon

Constructor: Ori Brian

Relative difficulty: Easy (3:10)

THEME: START A FIRE (61A: Ignite something ... or what the first words of 17-, 23-, 38- and 51-Across) — those first words can precede the word "fire" in familiar phrases:

Theme answers:

• SURE, WHY NOT? (17A: "What's there to lose?")
• CROSS-COUNTRY (23A: Way to run or ski)
• BON JOVI (38A: Band with the 12x platinum album "Slippery When Wet")
• BACK-TO-SCHOOL (51A: Like some August sales)

Word of the Day: Scotland's Firth of TAY (6D) —

The Firth of Tay /ˈteɪ/ (Scottish Gaelic: Linne Tatha) is a firth in Scotland between the council areas of Fife, Perth and Kinross, the City of Dundee and Angus, into which Scotland's largest river in terms of flow, the River Tay empties. The firth has a maximum width of 3 mi (4.8 km) at Invergowrie.

Two bridges span the firth, the Tay Road Bridge and the Tay Rail Bridge.

The firth has one major island, the marshy Mugdrum Island. (wikipedia)

• • •

Great, now I've got Billy Joel in my head. "We didn't START A FIRE! Little Rock! Pasternak! Chia Pets! Crack is wack!" Etc. The weirdest thing about this puzzle is that I've spent the better part of an hour since I finished it engaged in furious debate online about the proper spelling of AHH (5D: Sound of contentment), which my brain considers entirely improper. But I now realize this is because I have been crossword-conditioned. I am very much correct that in crosswords, the proper spelling is AAH. I know this because I've done roughly seven million puzzles. Also, I looked it up:

But apparently in the so-called "Real" world, AHH is considered correct. People were tweeting me in horrified disbelief that anyone could believe otherwise. My best friend (a longtime copy editor) kindly (read: haughtily) directed my attention to a this Dictionary of Interjections, where AAH is fright or shock, and AHH is either relaxation or understanding. I think we can all agree that the sound you make at the doctor / dentist is AH and never extends beyond two letters. Although Poison begs to disagree:

Anyway, my Twitter poll has AHH winning in a laugher, with AAH far behind and AHA and AJA getting hardly any votes at all:

OK, maybe we should talk about the rest of the puzzle. It's ... there. There it is. It's got two main problems: it's basically just a "first words can precede" puzzle, which is old hat and shrugworthy; and the revealer is about as scintillating as START A CAR, START A BLOG, or START A TIMER. That "A" really, really kills it. I mean, it's not BONAFIRE. Overall, the fill (FILL!) seems pretty solid, if not terribly shiny. I had all kinds of trouble in and around SURE, WHY NOT and AHH and TAY, and particularly WARS (really wanted it to be WARES) (!?) (18D: Hawks push them). But after that semi-rough patch, I took off barely hesitated the rest of the way. HALL (45A: Concert venue) and FILL (35D: Occupy completely) weirdly took work. But otherwise, zoom.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Obama's stepfather Soetoro / WED 2-21-18 / Mixed martial arts cage shape / Tandoor-baked bread / pre-1917 autocrats / Dr Seuss book that introduces phonics

Constructor: Ori Brian and Zachary Spitz

Relative difficulty: Medium (once you get past that initial ??? period and realize there's a bleeping rebus on a bleeping Wednesday)

THEME: PO BOX (41A: Certain mailing address, for short ... or a hint to 14 squares in this puzzle) — rebus puzzle where "PO" are squeezed into 14 different squares

Word of the Day: AMAL Clooney (58A: ___ Clooney, human rights lawyer) —

Amal Clooney (née Alamuddin, Arabic: أمل علم الدين‎; born 3 February 1978) is a Lebanese-British barrister at Doughty Street Chambers, specialising in international law and human rights. Her clients include Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, in his fight against extradition. She has also represented the former prime minister of Ukraine, Yulia Tymoshenko, and Egyptian-Canadian journalist Mohamed Fahmy. She is married to the American actor George Clooney. (wikipedia)

• • •

This is a puzzle with 14 PO BOXES. That, it is. It is that. My feelings couldn't be more neutral. It is what it says it is. There it is, take it or leave it. Take or leave 14 of these PO BOXES, why don't you? The concept is one that sounds like it would be cool, or cute, or clever, but it most just ... is. The fill also is. There it is. Fill never gets worse than, say, LOLO (16A: Obama's stepfather ___ Soetoro), but it never gets better than, say, MAGNETO, either (27A: Ian McKellen's role in "X-Men" movies). Just a lot of PO BOXES, in a grid, on a Wednesday. The end.

 [these tweets were posted independently of one another, almost simultaneously]

I flailed at first, not surprisingly, since when's the last time there was a Wednesday rebus? Feels like ages. I only look for a rebus on Thursdays, and maybe Sundays. I've seen them on other days, but I don't like them on other days. This one, though, ended up being Wednesday easy once you figured out what was going on. Just ... remember there are "PO" boxes out there to be found, and you're fine. I actually had a good 1/5 or so of the grid filled in before I finally hit a "PO" box. Went down from the NW, through the center and all the way over to 37D: Salk vaccine target (POLIO) before the theme shoved its way into view. I must've gotten PO BOX along the way but no really registered that it was a revealer. No matter. After that, it was just a matter of going back over earlier trouble spots, filling in "PO"s, and then proceeding with "PO"-search powers activated. Honestly, nothing about this puzzle stood out as remarkable to me, one way or the other, except AMAL Clooney, whose name I had literally just (seconds earlier) read on the NYT's home page—she and George are donating $500,000 to the student March Against Gun Violence. Her work with Yazidi refugees was pretty much the centerpiece of David Letterman's recent interview with George Clooney (the second episode of his new Netflix show, "My Next Guest Needs No Introduction..."). I'm writing about this because, again, there's nothing in the puzzle to write about. Good night.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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