Biblical spy for Moses / MON 1-19-26 / South American flatbread / Pete who directed "Up," "Inside Out" and "Soul" / 1987 song by Billy Joel and Ray Charles / Caribbean island with a liqueur named for it / Lesser-played part of a 45 / 1972 song by Elton John / Midsection measurement

Constructor: Peter Gorman

Relative difficulty: Medium (solved Downs-only)

THEME: LITTLE ROCK (66A: Capital ofArkansas ... or a description of 17-, 29- and 50-Across?) — "rock" songs with synonyms for "little" in the titles:

Theme answers:

• "TINY DANCER" (17A: 1972 song by Elton John)
• "SMALL TOWN" (29A: 1985 song by John Cougar Mellencamp)
• "BABY GRAND" (50A: 1987 song by Billy Joel and Ray Charles)

Word of the Day: Pete DOCTER (52D: Pete who directed "Up," "Inside Out" and "Soul") —

Peter Hans Docter (born October 9, 1968) is an American filmmaker, director and animator, who has served as chief creative officer (CCO) of Pixar since 2018.^[2][3] He has directed the company's animated films Monsters, Inc. (2001), Up (2009), Inside Out (2015), and Soul (2020). From his nine Academy Award nominations, he is a record three-time recipient of Best Animated Feature for Up, Inside Out and Soul. Docter has also won six Annie Awards from nine nominations, a BAFTA Children's Film Award and a Hochi Film Award. He describes himself as a "geeky kid from Minnesota who likes to draw cartoons". (wikipedia)

• • •

 

Hmm ... I guess this works. These are "rock" songs, and their titles contain words meaning "little," but somehow LITTLE ROCK doesn't really seem to express that phenomenon very well. Rock songs about little things = LITTLE ROCK? OK, if I think about the answers themselves actually being little (as opposed to just containing words meaning "little"), it makes a little (!) more sense, and therefore I like it a little better. The songs were all very much in my wheelhouse, all things I heard on the radio repeatedly—"SMALL TOWN" the most, probably, since that was a huge hit in my teen years; "BABY GRAND" much less, because it was much less of a hit; and "TINY DANCER" a lot, but mainly on classic rock stations (it came out when I was roughly 2, but it's one of Elton John's most famous songs, and plays an important role in Almost Famous (2000), a movie I loved). Sadly, knowing all the songs didn't help at all, since I solved Downs-only. Well, it helped with "TINY DANCER," for sure, since that is obviously a song title, but as far as I knew, SMALL TOWN and BABY GRAND were just ordinary phrases, not song titles. This may be why when I finished the puzzle and realized LITTLE ROCK was the revealer, I ... didn't really get it. I saw the "little" but not the "rock." I kept looking at the second words in each themer, expecting them to be some kind of rock, or to follow (or precede) the word "rock" in familiar phrases. I wanted those second words to do something ... rocky. But it's the whole song that's rock-y. Fine. Not exciting, but fine. 

The Scrabble-f***ing here is pretty obvious—high-value Scrabble tiles crammed into various remote crannies of the grid. You know the fill is not going to be optimal when you've got a pangram on your hands. When you strive for a pangram, getting every letter of the alphabet into the grid ends up taking precedence over making the grid as lively and clean as possible. No one cares about pangrams, everyone cares about good fill. The pangram is a stunt that I thought had passed out of favor forever, but apparently not. Anyway, this grid has at least one of every letter of the alphabet. Whoopee. It also has AIS. I'd've done anything I could to get the execrable plural AIS out of my grid, even (especially!) if it involved wrecking the pangram. That said, there's nothing particularly horrible about the fill today, and the long (7+) Downs do have a certain spark. A SPARK PLUG, even. The biggest "huh?" moment of the solve, for me, was DOCTER, a name I have somehow never seen or heard of despite the fact that I know all the movies mentioned in the clue (Up, Inside Out, Soul). Weird that directors of animated films don't tend to have the same name recognition as live-action directors. Aside from Miyazaki, I think Brad Bird (Ratatouille, The Incredibles) is the only animated film director I can name off the top of my head. Anyway, Pete DOCTER is obviously extremely successful, but wow I did not know his name, which meant that I had to infer every single letter from the crosses. Thankfully, in the end, there was no real ambiguity, but UNSEE definitely took a while to come together. I really wanted that to be ENSUE. 

There were other tricky parts of the Downs-only solve. I had B-SIDE instead of SIDE B for 28D: Lesser-played part of a 45. Super-annoying that either one is technically "correct." You'd think we'd have settled on one or the other by now, but no. In NYTXW history, there have been 32 BSIDEs, 30 SIDEBs. Bizarrely, neither one ever appeared in the puzzle before the Shortz Era, despite the fact that the term "B-SIDE" dates back to the '40s. I assume SIDE B goes at least as far back. I tried to look up "SIDE B" just now, to figure out its origins, but all that came up was a kind of Christianity I have *never* heard of:

Side B Christians are Christians who identify as LGBT or have LGBTQ+ experiences, but take a traditional view of human sexuality and thus commit to celibacy or a mixed-orientation marriage. The term Side B derives from an Internet forum where Side A Christians, with an affirming view of LGBT sexuality, were contrasted with Side B Christians. Prominent Side B Christians include Eve Tushnet, a lesbian Catholic based in Washington, DC, and Bekah Mason, executive director of Revoice. In particular, Side B Christians reject conversion therapy. Side B is also distinct from Side Y, which does not affirm LGBT identification. (wikipedia)

What a weird thing to learn, and what a weird way to learn it. Anyway, that SIDEB section also had AREPA (27D: South American flatbread) and CALEB, both of which I got, but CALEB (26D: Biblical spy for Moses) ... I don't know how I knew CALEB. It's not like I know Exodus all that well [apparently CALEB appears in Numbers, not Exodus; my bad!] . It's an answer that just came to me. I was not at all sure of it, but it *felt* right. So I got lucky there. Other Down answers that gave me issues included a bunch of stuff in the SE: DAZZLES before DISARMS (49D: Wins over with charm), COLD before COOL (62D: Chilly), AREA before ACRE (63D: Surveyor's measure).

Bullets:

• 53A: Midsection measurement (GIRTH) — this is true enough, but why does GIRTH signify heftiness to me? Like, the word seems to have the idea of largeness built in, even though it's just "a measure around a body" (2a, merriam-webster dot com). Would you ever talk about a skinny person's GIRTH? Aw man, I just looked up [skinny person's girth] and all I got was page after page of penis info. I really gotta stop looking things up. It's not going well for me today.
• 61A: Caribbean island with a liqueur named for it (CURAÇAO) — I (now, as of 2026) keep a running list of the cocktail-related clues and answers. I expect I'll be seeing a lot of GIN and RYE, maybe some AGAVE spirits. But CURAÇAO—that's more unusual. A nice surprise. CURAÇAO is probably most famous in its blue form—I think of it as very tiki bar-oriented. The Blue Hawaii—that's got blue CURAÇAO in it. If you want your drink to be blue, blue CURAÇAO is the liqueur you GO TO. In this house, however, we drink Pierre-Ferrand Dry CURAÇAO. It is orange. Because it's an orange liqueur. Makes sense! 

[Bing sang it (in Waikiki Wedding (1937)) twenty-four years before Elvis]

• 35D: Device for starting an engine (SPARK PLUG) — tough for me. I wanted something like a KEY. Something that *I* start the engine with. Something I hold. So I needed many crosses before this answer dawned on me.

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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Hamlet's ill-fated love interest / TUES 7-29-25 / What's touch and go? / Setting of Switzerland's Glacier Express / Golden fruit that started the Trojan War, in myth

Hi, everyone! It’s Clare for the last Tuesday of the best month of the year (the one I was born in, of course!). Hope everyone is staying cool as the ridiculous heat and humidity get even more ridiculous (at least here in D.C.). My sister, dad, and I went to watch some tennis at the D.C. Open, which drew some pretty big names, and we thought we might melt, as we were sitting out there in the sun for several hours. My puppy, Red, went on her first hike, at Harper’s Ferry — as we all celebrated my dad’s birthday in the best month of the year — and she was a rock star. My Reds, Liverpool, return to action in just two weeks, so we can see if they defend their Premier League title. Life is good. Maybe even great. 

Anywho, on to the puzzle…

Constructor: Peter Gorman

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME:  BEND OREGON (55A: Western city hinted at seven times in this puzzle's circled letters) — The circled letters each form the word “Oregon,” bent in different ways

Theme answers:

• OREGON (starting with the O in SALON (14A) and ending with the N in SNORT (17A)) 
• OREGON (starting with the O in AGO (18A) and ending with the N in ION (15A)) 
• OREGON (starting with the O in PORED (16A) and ending with the N in I’M ON (23A)) 
• OREGON (starting with the O in DORSALS (46A) and ending with the N in I CAN SO (35A)) 
• OREGON (starting with the O in RUSHMORE (37A) and ending with the N in PANINI (44A)) 
• OREGON (starting with the O in BRODY (64A) and ending with the N in AARON (60A)) 
• OREGON (starting with the O in ORE (65A) and ending with the N in NOG (68A))

Word of the Day: AEGIS (34D: Protection)  —

The aegis, as stated in the Iliad, is a device carried by Athena and Zeus, variously interpreted as an animal skin or a shield and sometimes featuring the head of a Gorgon. The modern concept of doing something "under someone's aegis" means doing something under the protection of a powerful, knowledgeable, or benevolent source. The word aegis is identified with protection by a strong force with its roots in Greek mythology and adopted by the Romans; there are parallels in Norse mythology and in Egyptian mythology as well, where the Greek word aegis is applied by extension. (Wiki)

• • •

That was a fun, clever theme. I got BEND OREGON (55A) easily, and that helped me fill in the rest of the puzzle, so this was a fast Tuesday for me. It’s impressive construction to get seven bent OREGONs in the puzzle formed in all sorts of different ways. The puzzle itself looked a little ugly as I was solving, but I think the payoff was worth having so, so many circles. I had the darnedest time trying to describe the theme answers above, because bits of several different words form each OREGON, so I kind of punted. 

I enjoyed how there were similar words close to one another in the puzzle several times. APPLE (9A: Golden fruit that started the Trojan War, in myth) crossing EDEN (13D: Unspoiled paradise) is brilliant. NORSE GODS (36D: Thor and Odin) ran parallel to EROS (54D: Cupid's Greek counterpart). LOGIC (32D: "___ will get you from A to B. Imagination can take you everywhere" (statement attributed to Einstein)) and IRONY (33D: Humor with a twist) were side-by-side. This is a reach, but DIABLO (6D: El infierno figure) and ELMO (21D: Muppet who's made guest appearances on "Scrubs" and "The West Wing") were also next to each other, and they’re both… red. Not that I like red, or anything. 

The construction smack dab in the center of the puzzle let me down, though. RAS (37D: Dorm aides, for short) crossing PAS (39A: Dads) just looks wrong. The words are almost identical. Then, also in that middle section, there’s GAS as part of INERT GAS (41A: Argon or neon) and PAS again as part of PASSED ON (39D: Forwent). And “forwent” is about as ugly a word as exists. 

I’d also be a happier person if puzzles stopped incorporating phrases such as I CAN SO (35A: Rejoinder to a doubter) or the usual “Are too” or “Am so” or the other seemingly million ways these dumb phrases are clued. 

I didn’t love GO GO (38A: Constantly pushing forward). DORSALS (46A: Some fins), as a plural, also doesn’t work for me. Dorsal fins, sure, but DORSALS on its own? The clue for GLOB (43D: Hunk of melted mozzarella, e.g.) seems randomly specific. Why call out mozzarella instead of referring to cheese in general? The clue for RUSHMORE (37A: Mount with four faces that all face southeast) also randomly specifies that the sculptures all face southeast. Who knew? 

I got slowed down slightly with BAD LEG (47D: Reason to wear a knee brace, perhaps) because I thought it could be “bum leg.” And I tried both “stiff” and “solid” before realizing the answer was RIGID (27D: Inflexible). But I didn’t get tripped up with most proper names in the puzzle: Sophia LOREN (4D), ROGER EBERT (20A), Mary J. BLIGE (19A), AARON Burr (60A), Adrien BRODY (64A), or NEIL Patrick Harris (59D). Your mileage may vary. 

ENORMOUS (8D: Huge) was my favorite down of the puzzle. I also liked the mini mythology theme with NORSE GODS (36D), EROS (54D), AEGIS (34D), and APPLE (9A). And I loved OPHELIA (31A: Hamlet's ill-fated love interest). I’ve had the song "OPHELIA" by The Lumineers stuck in my head for this entire write-up. Luckily, it’s an amazing song.

Misc.:

• If you’re looking for a BOP (48A: Catchy song, in modern lingo), look no further than any of the many songs from the movie “KPop Demon Hunters,” which came out last month. It’s about a K-pop girl group who are demon hunters (shocking, I know!) and have to face off against a boy group made up of, you guessed it, demons. It’s genuinely very good. For BOPs, I recommend starting with either “Your Idol” or “Golden” (which is No. 2 on Billboard right now). 
• I don’t know why it hadn’t occurred to me earlier that, of course, Leonardo da VINCI (66A) was literally from VINCI. Leonardo of VINCI. Duh! 
• With 57D: Options for martinis, for me, the answer is olives, olives, olive juice, olives, or more olives. I remember the time I had a sip of a martini for the first time. when I was in college. I tried my mom’s and nearly spit it out because it was just straight vodka. GINS is an ugly plural, but at least the answer wasn’t vodkas. 
• The best sandwich I’ve ever had wasn’t grilled like a PANINI (44A: Grilled Italian sandwich) but was on a trip to Florence. It was made on the freshest bread, with pounds of delicious salami and soppressata, and miles of stringy, salty cheese (not GLOBs). Even better, I ate it sitting on the sidewalk with a glass of €2 wine. 
• My sister and I were just singing along to “Hamilton” and specifically AARON Burr’s (60A) parts. We were either annoying or indoctrinating our dad, who just finished a Rick Atkinson book on the Revolutionary War. 
• Maybe I got BEND OREGON (55A) quickly because I’ve actually been there — once for a soccer tournament and another time to watch my sister at a horse show. It’s quite beautiful.

Now I shall sign off because I again have a client interview in Baltimore bright and early tomorrow. (What is it with USCIS scheduling my interviews for Tuesday at 7:30 a.m.?!) 

See you next time (which will actually be in just a week)!

Signed, Clare Carroll, BEND-t out of shape by the USCIS scheduling

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Alternative to a spicy Dorito / THU 2-20-25 / Blue man group member? / Digital work fueled by machine learning, in brief / Who said "A dress is a piece of ephemeral architecture" / Move after a touchdown / Lynchian or Felliniesque, say / Sensational, on Broadway / Virtual storefront in an online marketplace

Constructor: Peter Gorman

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: ONE- / OFF (29A: With 43-Across, something never to be repeated ... or a hint to the answers to the italicized clues) — every theme answer is about the puzzle itself, just ... OFF by ONE (of whatever unit is in question)

Theme answers:

• TWENTY-ONE ACROSS (20A: This clue)
• FOURTEEN LETTERS (37A: This answer)
• WEDNESDAY PUZZLE (51A: This crossword)

Word of the Day: TAKIs (41A: Alternative to a spicy Dorito) —

Takis are a Mexican brand of flavored rolled tortilla chips produced by Barcel, a subsidiary of Grupo Bimbo since 2019. Fashioned after the taquito, it comes in numerous flavors, the best selling of which is the chili-lime "Fuego" flavor, sold in distinctive purple bags, introduced in 2006. Besides the rolled corn chips, Takis produces other snacks with the same flavor lines, including different potato chip varieties, corn "stix", popcorn, and peanuts.

Takis were invented in Mexico in 1999 and introduced to the United States in November 2001 (originally as Taquis, before being renamed to Takis in 2004) and Canada in 2015. Barcel originally intended to aim Takis towards a Hispanic demographic, but its popularity has quickly spread among Gen Z and Gen Alpha.

• • •

The one thing that keeps this puzzle theme above water is the fact that all the themers relate to the puzzle itself—that is, that the stuff that is "one off" is all part of a coherent set. I never really like the cutesy, precious, self-referential type of themes (which often strike me as smug and self-congratulatory, as if the puzzle were full of excessive self-regard), but today, the meta quality gives the theme coherence. I mean, there are infinite answers that could be clued in a way that is "one off," so you need something, and the puzzle itself ... will do nicely. The themers are also all fifteen letters long, so there's a physical, structural coherence to the themer set as well. That said, huge shrug—that is how I felt. To me, the answers were simply wrong, but they were easy to get, so I had a strong "who cares?" feeling while I was solving. And then because of the absurd revealer placement, I didn't see ONE-OFF until near the very very end, which would have been fine, ideal even, if the revealer had been really clever or crossword-related or anything. But it's just ... ONE ... OFF? Yeah, I see that. Obviously everything is ONE OFF? That's all you got? ONE OFF? Pffffffft. Major anticlimax. 

Further, the physical location of that revealer is one of two completely inexplicable choices made by this puzzle. So ... this puzzle is in English, and in English, we read left to right. Why in the world is the first part of ONE-OFF on the right side of the grid? Put ONE where BAS is, put OFF where NES is, and now the revealer reads correctly: top to bottom, left to right (ugh, just writing BAS and NES is reminding me of how unpleasant the non-theme part of this puzzle was). Was it really impossible to make ONE and OFF work in the much more sensible positions? Anyway, themewise, this puzzle ... let's say it makes the most (or a lot) of a pretty weak concept. Usually things are the other way around—great idea, poor execution. Today, weak idea, but ... good job getting the themer set to cohere as well as it does. Next time don't botch the revealer placement. Unforced error. Hell, with all those three-letter answers on the same rows as ONE and OFF, you had *tons* of placement options. Better to get creative and break symmetry completely (with ONE and OFF one atop the other, or on the same row, or even as successive answers) than do this awkward backward garbage.

[57D: Locale depicted in Bosch's "The Garden of Earthly Delights"]

The other completely inexplicable choice made by this puzzle is singular TAKI. It's so bad. Singular DORITO is bad enough, but somehow singular TAKI is infinitely worse, for a number of reasons. First, TAKIs are far far far less famous, as a brand name, than Doritos, which are like the Coke of chip products. This doesn't mean they (plural) can't be in the grid, but why are we getting a singular TAKI (it's a debut, of course), before we ever get the actual full name of the product, which, again, is TAKIS, plural. TAKIS has never appeared in the NYTXW ... ever. And you want its first appearance to be ... a single TAKI? What's worse is that there's absolutely no reason for this stupid answer to be here. Jacques TATI is one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. I would be thrilled to see him here. TAKI is like Bizarro TATI, like the hateful, evil version of TATI. Would not see TAKI's movies. Anyway, just change the "K" to "T" please. That gives you INT, which I don't love, but you could make it ONT (short for "Ontario") if you wanted. Whatever, anything to get stupid singular TAKI out of there. If you prefer TAKI to TATI, well, I'm sorry you hate CINEMATIC things, may god have mercy on your soul.

The fill in this grid is pretty poor, right from the jump. First indication you should revise your grid: it has OCULI in it. OCULI crossing ACOW is basically a blaring siren of "no no, stop stop stop." And then from there into AIART ... again? (22A: Digital work fueled by machine learning, in brief). It just debuted last week (Sunday!), and like all unwanted and terrible tech things, it seems to be proliferating, becoming obnoxiously ubiquitous against the will of reasonable, decent human beings. The longer Downs on this one are actually pretty decent (not a fan of the gratuitous definite article in THE MUSES, but ETSY SHOP and RECORD DEAL are good, and the clue on HOLIDAY INN is really good—28D: Home to many kings and queens). But the short fill is often miserable. OCULI ACOW AIART BOFFO (what year is it???) ESSES NES FORA BAS DMED MATEO ... and that's just a start. The one virtue of the fill is that it was all very easy to get. It's kinda grim, but you don't have to struggle for any of it, so ... yeah, that's something.

A handful of other things:

• 16A: Move after a touchdown (TAXI) — what an airplane does after it has landed, assuming it has not landed upside-down ... not gonna forget that one soon.
• 34A: Who said "A dress is a piece of ephemeral architecture" (DIOR) — I mostly find quote clues unworthy, i.e. the quote feels banal or not worthy knowing, but I like this one a lot.
• 58A: ___ Roy, Booker Prize-winning author, 1997 (ARUNDHATI) — definitely high-fived myself for not only knowing this answer but spelling it correctly on the first pass.

• 26D: Blue man group member? (SMURF) — this is good, but it was spoiled for me by a puzzle I did recently which had this exact wordplay as the entire theme. All the answers were part of the "blue man group." I forget who they all were. Maybe Beast (from X-Men) or Huckleberry Hound or Dr. Manhattan ... anyway, it's good wordplay. Apologies to whoever made the puzzle I'm talking about, as I can't remember who you are and I couldn't remember the themer set, my bad. (the puzzle must've commemorated the final Blue Man Group performance in NYC on Feb. 2—the last of more than 17,000 performances).
• 54D: Only character shown in the final 30 minutes of "2001: A Space Odyssey" (DAVE) — Mmmm, CINEMATIC. I like this clue because it calls attention to those truly weird final 30 minutes. Everyone remembers HAL, but weird old DAVE in that white room ... nice to give that scene some attention.

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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