Neck topper / SAT 8-29-26 / Half-spoken, half-sung passages of an opera / Nonhuman provider of medical advice / Green day star, for short / Skin-care brand known for its pore strips / Main characters for an early reader / Depicting the world bleakly and cynically / Green day star, for short / Humongous, slangily / Inverse of an exponential function

Constructor: Rafael Musa and Kate Chin Park

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: ANA Huang (21A: Romance author Huang) —

Ana Huang is a Chinese-American author who primarily writes novels in the romance and new adult fiction genres. She is a #1 New York Times and USA Today bestselling author. [...]  After 2019, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Huang began writing and self-publishing novels, and promoting them on TikTok. Her Twisted series went viral, and was republished by Bloom Books in 2022. [...] In 2023, her novel King of Greed reached #1 on the Paperback Trade Fiction section of The New York Times Best Seller list. King of Sloth was a #1 New York Times Best Seller, and reached #1 on the USA Today Booklist. Twisted Love stayed on the Paperback Trade Fiction section of The New York Times Best Seller list for 61 weeks. // In 2024, Huang, with 1,474,194 print copies sold, is the fourth highest selling BookTok author. (wikipedia)

• • •

Kind of a tough one today, which is to say, just about the right difficulty level for a Saturday. So weird to have Rafa do an emergency fill-in for me yesterday and then open the puzzle and see his name on the byline this morning. While there is much that I loved about this puzzle, most of the good vibes immediately evaporated when I got "A.I. DOCTOR" (1D: Nonhuman provider of medical advice). I realize that my aversion to A.I. creep in the puzzle is largely personal and perhaps idiosyncratic, but I can't help it, I just find the proliferation of everything A.I. completely disheartening. Hate to see the puzzle heedlessly dive into All Things A.I. the way the rest of the world seems to be doing. I know that there are various professional applications for A.I. that are useful and non-dehumanizing, but most of it seems like a way to eliminate jobs, mislead people, and make a few people very rich. Even the idea of calling any A.I. a "doctor" is, or should be, abhorrent. It's not and never can be a "doctor." It's *trained* on work that millions of actual doctors have done, but it is not and cannot be a doctor. Also, various "A.I. DOCTORS" are being offered as substitutes for traditional medical service, in some cases specifically because the user might not have medical insurance, and so ... all this A.I. crap is just papery over structural failures in society. I hate it. Every time we anthropomorphize one of these things by treating it like it's human, giving in a human name (or job title), we're a. pretending it's something it isn't and b. conceding some piece of our humanity to corporate-owned proprietary machinery. This is why "A.I." will give dystopian vibes to me Every Time I see it in a puzzle. I would love if constructors had their own personal "no A.I." policy, but I can see that's not going to happen. I'm not mad (don't say I GOT MAD). Just sad and disappointed. And tired.

I was also a little put off by the name blitz up top (ANA CHENG EWING BAIN BIORE etc.) but the names dissipated in the lower half of the grid, so the overall experience of hacking through said names (the ones I didn't know) wasn't So bad. I knew some of the names (The PITT, August WILSON, Patrick EWING, BAIN Capital (another depresso-answer to go with the A.I. DOCTOR) (27A: ___ Capital, investment firm co-founded by Mitt Romney). But those pore strips, ugh. I had like six different letter combinations before I finally got to BIORE (14A: Skin-care brand known for its pore strips). BIERO? I think that was one of them. No way I am going to know a Chinese character's meaning, so CHENG could've been "any Chinese name." ANA Huang writes about as far away from where I read as possible (see "Word of the Day," above). I've read and enjoyed a romance novel or two in my time, but "New Adult Fiction" and "BookTok" are alien territory to me (perhaps brought down to earth on some kind of ALIEN SHIP, which is also kind of an alien term to me—isn't it just SPACE SHIP?). The fact that they have subdivided younger readers even further in order to create new markets. "New Adult"? "The genre originally faced criticism as a marketing scheme." Yeah, I bet it did. I guess "new adult fiction" is like YA fiction but the protagonist is 18-29?? So it's still written at an 8th-grade reading level but with a grown-up-ish character? Look, as I told my daughter when she was in her "dystopian scifi/fantasy teen trilogy" phase, if you're reading, you're reading, and I'm happy. But ... maybe some day think about leaving the algorithmically-created rut you've been channeled into by your corporate overlords? Some day? Just think about it. Meanwhile, for all I know ANA Huang is a fantastic writer and I'm missing out by being a grumpy old man. Very, very possible.

The marquee stuff was a little on the tepid side today. It's a lovely center stack, but it's not exactly crackling. More just ... pleasant. SOCIAL LADDER, TENNIS LESSON, PATIO HEATERS (whatever those are ...) they're solid, doing their job, but not exactly wowing anyone. Are PATIO HEATERS those things at restaurants that allow you to eat outside even when the weather is a bit crisp? Maybe rich people have them at their "parties" too. I weirdly liked ERSTWHILE more than almost anything in the grid. Its quaintness and oldenness look especially fetching hanging out right next to the much more modern "SO RANDOM" (36D: "Wow ... what are the chances?!"). But I do think that the longest answer in the grid is probably also the best. It's the one thing that feels unimpeachably marquee-worthy. It also gave me a delightful moment of coincidence, where the first thing I wrote in fit ... but was incorrect. I had BULLI and thought "what in the world starts 'BULLI-???" Then after muttering things like "bullying" and "bullion" to myself for a bit, I thought "Oh, BULL IN ... something ... what's that expression? Oh right! BULL IN THE HEATHER!"

This is what happens when you were a Gen X kid who listened to too much '90s alt rock. I mean, BULL IN THE HEATHER slid right in. When it fit (!) I was like "woo hoo! nailed it!" But then a few seconds later, I was like "wait, isn't the expression BULL IN A CHINA SHOP?" And then *that* fit. So I tested a cross and when NOIR worked at 41A: Depicting the world bleakly and cynically, I knew which BULL phrase was the right one. So thanks to Sonic Youth for nearly derailing my solving experience today, it was thrilling.

[15A: Large restaurant vessel shaped like another vessel]

Bullets:

• 1A: Main characters for an early reader (ABCS) — "characters" as in "letters"
• 16A: Conference handout (ID TAG) — no abbr. indicator in the clue made this extra hard for me
• 43A: "Sweet dreams are made of cheese / Who am I to dis a ___?" (parody lyrics) ("BRIE") — so incredibly dumb. I kind of love it.
• 47A: "It is not easy for a ___ to balance himself on a ladder": "Animal Farm" ("PIG") — first of all, true. Second of all, timely—the first American edition of Animal Farm was published 80 years ago this month (it was published a year earlier in England).

• 39D: Half-spoken, half-sung passages of an opera (ARIOSI) — a little old-school crosswordese for you. Vowel city! Terminal "I"! Useful! (though you don't see it around much any more—this is its first appearance in seven years).
• 48A: A word in closing (THUS) — I thought maybe "PLUS ..." Kinda like a "P.S."? Kinda?
• 14D: Humongous, slangily (BIG-ASS) — the NYTXW remains firmly in its ASS era. Expect ASS-suffixing to continue indefinitely. Conditions may worsen. Who knows?
• 2D: Neck topper (BOTTLE CAP) — I stared at this clue wondering what in the world it could mean. On top of a neck is a ... head. "Topper?" I get that bottles have "necks" and that bottle caps are "tops," but I can't quite imagine someone saying "top that neck, will ya?" and then someone else putting a bottle cap back on a bottle. But literally, the clue checks out.
• 13D: Green day star, for short (ST. PAT) — again, I don't think you'd actually call St. Patrick's Day "Green day" but literally, sure, people wear green, whatever. I just hope you didn't think the clue was asking for a member of the band Green Day—the lowercase "d" on "day" should've disabused you of that notion.

• 38D: Publisher of the front-page headline "This sport is stupid anyway" after a U.S. loss at the World Cup, in brief (N.Y. POST) — ... speaking of "American Idiot"—the New York Post! I miss the World Cup. Though I was reminded yesterday (in a New Yorker article about lethal European heatwaves) that Spain won and thought "oh ... right, I guess they did." Somehow the totality of the experience looms larger in my mind than the actual winner of the whole thing. 

That's all. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Tobiko or masago / FRI 7-31-26 / Palm-sized pastry / Just OK, in modern lingo / Formal pause in a line of poetry / British counterpart to "Shark Tank" / Certain shot, colloquially / Chain that can symbolize friendship / Energy for distance runners

Constructor: Rafael Musa

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: DRAGON'S DEN (6D: British counterpart to "Shark Tank") —

Dragons' Den, also known as Shark Tank, is a reality television program format in which entrepreneurs pitch their business ideas to a panel of venture capitalists in the hope of securing investment finance from them. The program originated in 2001 in Japan, where it is known as The Tigers of Money (Japanese: マネーの虎, romanized: manē no tora), a pun on "The Tiger of Malaya" (マレーの虎, marē no tora), which was the nickname of WWII general Tomoyuki Yamashita. The format was created and is owned by Nippon TV and is distributed by Sony Pictures Television.

Local versions of the show have been produced in over 40 countries, as well as one for the Arab world; in some countries, more than one version has been aired. The first version to air outside of Japan was the British programme Dragons' Den, which launched in 2005; in the several years afterward, most versions named themselves Dragons' Den or variations thereof, though some also used other animals in the title, such as lions. The Israeli version of the show, HaKrishim ("The Sharks"), was the first to use the "shark" moniker, during its launch in 2006. Since the launch of the American version of the show, Shark Tank, in 2009, many versions have been named Shark Tank or variations thereof. In versions where the name of the show contains a creature's name, the investors are referred to by that name. (wikipedia)

• • •

["above all the drama"]

I don't know if I'M IN AWE, but I really liked this one. Might even have rated it a tick higher if not for  the clue on SAM (huge bummer) (12D: Tech mogul Altman), and DRAGON'S DEN (6D: British counterpart to "Shark Tank"). My antipathy to A.I. apostles, as well as to the lionization of venture capitalists, is well documented, so I'll spare you my "GTFO" rant. On Friday, vibes matter and those answers really brought the room down. And we were having so much fun! Actually, I got the cruddy rich-guy answers out of the way early, so the vibes had a chance to recover. After I got out of the NW, things got much, much more fun. SLEEPOVERS! PARTY BOATs! ALL SMILES, for sure. The cascading and intersecting long answers in this one, running roughly NW to SE, were really something. Smooth and bright. And fun! Some of the cluing was really clever today, including two clues with altitude-based wordplay. First, my favorite clue, the one on OPERA BOX (44A: Where to be above all the drama?). Simple, elegant—perfect surface-level idiom, perfect literal description (OPERA BOXes are indeed, literally, above the drama (taking place on stage)). And then there's the clue on AERIAL YOGA (53A: Highly flexible discipline?). You couldn't get me into an AERIAL YOGA class (my local yoga studio tried!), but even though I have no interest in it, I know what it is, and I liked the clue's sneaky use of "High-ly" (to mean "in a literally elevated position"). That's what. the "?" is for—to allow you to bennnnnd the meaning of words in funny ways. The "?" clue worked less well on PARTY BOAT (26D: Venue for events that guests are always on board to attend?). I think the "on board" was supposed to be an idiomatic misdirect ("on board" in the sense of "game, willing, down"), but it didn't land—the "on board" simply said "well it's a boat or a plane or maybe a train." But overall, this was a nice mix of breeziness and challenge, with a broad range of interest and an endearingly playful tone. Never dull. Good stuff.

[29D: "Yellow Submarine" lead vocalist]

As for the difficulty, it was never extreme, but it was enough to make things interesting. From the opening clue (1A: Withholding something?), the puzzle has you knitting your brow. I probably should've gotten TAX immediately ([Withholding something?] = something withheld), but all I could think of was PAY, which I did not write in due to lack of confidence. First thing I actually wrote in: YESES! (2D: Assenting chorus). YAY ME! These early screw-ups were relatively quickly fixed, but I appreciated that the puzzle was at least trying to trip me up. It's Friday, make me (lightly) work! I flat-out didn't know DRAGON'S DEN and totally forgot that GEL was a thing runner's ate. What is the GEL made of? Weird to say that your source of energy is just GEL, which seems to refer to form, not content, but I guess colloquially it's accurate. Because of the DRAGON'S DEN / GEL issues, I could not make the turn into the middle and NE corner, so I ended up going the other direction, which is where things really picked up:

"SO WHAT?!" "I CAN'T EVEN!" Good colloquial energy through here. Plus—bonus Anglo-Saxon poetry content! (CAESURA) (35D: Formal pause in a line of poetry). You can find CAESURAs (CAESURAe?) in later English poetry, but it's definitive of Anglo-Saxon poetry. The entire corpus, I think. I know it all alliterates and I think the CAESURA is a more-or-less constant feature as well. Certainly in the poetry I teach. My students will definitely have to know CAESURA for the first exam. 

I managed to work my way back up into the NE despite forgetting the Pride & Prejudice sister and writing in HALOS for TOLLS (23D: Rings), and then MIRE for DIRT (16A: Grime). The toughest remaining part, though, came in the SE, where I thought the ASL clue was GEE???  (43A: What a closed fist with an extended index finger represents, in A.S.L.) (ONE)

I guess that's not really a "closed fist," but it's all I could think of. I assumed the clue wanted a letter. But that screw-up didn't screw me up as much as the way I chose to spell PYOTR, which was PIETR (45A: Pierre : French :: ___ : Russian). I blame Georges Simenon, specifically his first Maigret novel, Pietr-le-Letton (Pietr the Latvian). Well ... it's called Pietr the Latvian, not Pietr the Russian, so ... my bad.

PIETR gave me an erroneous "I," which I used to (ironically!) write in "I RULE!" for 46D: Self-congratulation ("YAY ME!"). Bit of a mess down there. But like the bit-of-a-mess up top (PAY? YESES?), it was relatively easy to clean up. This is what I want from a Friday, as far as difficulty goes—not torture, but ... I don't know, some light impishness and trickery. 

Bullets:

• 55A: Brazilian state whose name is a unit of measurement (ACRE) — I had no idea such a state existed. Interesting way to teach me (adding the more familiar bit about measurement). With ACRE in the puzzle, I'm not sure [Wiseacre] was the best choice for the SMARTYPANTS clue, but then again, I doubt anyone but me and a few other hypersensitive weirdos noticed. 
• 11A: Sex work? (KAMA SUTRA) — another beautiful "?" clue were the surface level is so smooth and familiar and ordinary that you wouldn't see the wordplay coming without the "?" (so, not sex for pay ("sex work") but a book ("work") about sex).
• 7D: Just OK, in modern lingo (MID) — of all the modern lingo (i.e. "lingo" invented in this century), this is maybe my favorite. There's something so withering about "MID." Very useful.
• 36D: Certain shot, colloquially (VAX) — had the "X" and wanted PIX. "But ... PIX? That's plural," I thought. Indeed. It's also wrong.
• 52D: Chain that can symbolize friendship (LEI) — it's a sad commentary on how capitalism-fried my brain is that my first thought for "Chain" here was "retailer." "REI ... do they have a new handshake logo or something?"

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Peabody-winning journalist Steve / FRI 5-8-26 / Ding thing? / Tuber that's the source of tapioca / Mammoth's home, for short / It's usually followed by an "s" / Humor without a traditional punchline / Cartoonist who popularized the Democratic donkey / Where to see fresh coats of white? / One of two in Raphael's "Sistine Madonna"

Constructor: Rafael Musa and Geoffrey Schorkopf

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: Steve KROFT (51A: Peabody-winning journalist Steve) —

 

Stephen F. Kroft (born August 22, 1945) is an American retired journalist who was a long-time correspondent for 60 Minutes. His investigative reporting garnered widespread acclaim, winning him three Peabody Awards and nine Emmy awards, including one for Lifetime Achievement in 2003. [...] In 1990, he became the first American journalist to be given extensive access to the contaminated grounds of the Chernobyl nuclear facility, and his story won an Emmy.^[8] After allegations of infidelity surfaced in the 1992 presidential election, then-Governor Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary, gave an exclusive interview to Kroft. The interview was one of the defining moments in the election. [...] Kroft asked Clint Eastwood how many children he has while interviewing the highly secretive actor in 1997. When Eastwood responded "I have a few," Kroft broached the subject with a declarative question: "Seven kids with five women, right?"—actually a conservative estimate, but at the time an unprecedented statement. Eastwood did not answer and stared at Kroft in silence for 30 seconds. [lol] (wikipedia)

• • •

This was fun, but way harder than I'm used to Friday puzzles being of late. No whoosh or zoom for me today, as three out of the four quadrants involved some amount of struggle today. Of the longer answers, SEX MANUALS and "WHEN IN ROME..." went in pretty easily, but all the rest had me stopping and thinking. Only the NE corner, the last section I solved, ended up being relatively easy, and that's because I. had the bottom of those longer answers already built—the SKIP from SKIP STONES went up into that corner and everything worked out from there. But back to the beginning—yeesh and yikes, that little 3x4 section at the far NW was very, very hard for me to nail down. -A-ESON (1A: Criticizes, in modern lingo) + -TT- (1D: It's usually followed by an "s") + -S- (19A: Hollywood is on it: Abbr.) + -EX- (3D: Ding thing?) had me worried I was losing my mind. Eventually I got HTTP and HATES ON and it all fell, but every clue in there had me mystified for a bit. Elsewhere, the plural of MED SCHOOLS was hidden / invisible (28D: Where to see fresh coats of white?), so even though I wanted SCHOOLS, I pulled it. I had no idea who Steve KROFT was (turns out, I know who he is, but only by face, not by name). So the SW corner fought me a little as well. 

And then there was the SE corner, which was giving me nothing until I finally got to a gimme: KOFI (54D: ___ Annan, former U.N. secretary general). I was able to build back from there, through the gratuitous Taylor Swift reference, through RONDA (another answer, like MED SCHOOLS, that I had but then pulled), back to ... MANIOC!? (46D: Tuber that's the source of tapioca). LOL, "She's a MANIOC, MAAAAAANIOC!" I swear to god I wrote TAPIOC in there for a bit. I guess I've heard of MANIOC but hoo boy, not a front-of-the-brainer. I think I had CASAVA in there at some point too, and I was close: cassava is another name for MANIOC, but as you can see, "cassava" has two "s"s, not one. sigh. That "N" in MANIOC was elusive because I don't know what a Chilango is (someone from Chile, I'm guessing, now) [nope—a resident of Mexico City, lol, no hope of guessing that],  ... let's just say the missing tilde on that "N" is somehow extra grating today. SEÑOR. It's SEÑOR. Not SENOR. . . Pfft. OK, I think that's all the SORE SPOTS. Again, I think the grid is good today, I just was not prepared for this kind of a struggle on a normally breezy Friday.

Today's marquee answers are more than up to the job (that job: being sexy and/or flashy and/or generally interesting). ANTI-COMEDY was the only thing that landed with a thud for me, mostly because I don't really believe in it (11D: Humor without a traditional punchline). It's still comedy, right? I'm not sure which comedians are allegedly anti-comedians. The two main figures who get cited on the ANTI-COMEDY wikipedia page are Andy Kaufman and Norm Macdonald ... yeah, OK, that helps a little. Still, "subverting normal joke structure" is just a form of comedy. Subverting normal structures is a standard thing that happens within all arts. I just think ANTI-COMEDY is a stupid label. A real term, but a dumb one. But this is a personal opinion, not a genuine fault with the puzzle. And as I say, the other longer answers really sing. SKIP STONES, SINK HOLE, "WHEN IN ROME..." ... I love that SEX MANUALS and STARTER KIT are in symmetry. Makes me wonder what kind of STARTER KIT we're talking about. What kind of "gear" you got there, buddy? (30D: First gear?).

Bullets:

• 17A: One away from one's duties? (TAX EXILE) — at first I thought this was going to be something about going AWOL, but no, "duties" = taxes. Really thought throwing TAX into that far NW corner was going to bring it right down, but even with the "X," as I said above—rough going up there.
• 18A: French exit (SORTIE) — literally the French word for "exit." The clue is playing on this meaning of "french exit": "a departure from a location or event without informing others or without seeking approval"

• 48A: Mammoth's home, for short (NHL) — I forget which team this is. LOL there's a Utah Mammoth now? Yes, since 2024, there is. My sports IQ really fell through the floor when I gave up network/cable TV (and therefore ESPN).

• 3D: Ding thing? (TEXT) — as someone who has all sounds on his phone turned O-F-F (because they are a public nuisance), this clue really really missed me. SEXT seemed more likely, somehow (Does "Ding" have sexual implications? Maybe not. But somehow, with the winky little "?" at the end of the clue, it feels like it does...) 

• 10D: Accessory turned down on a cap (EARLAP) — never gonna get over how this is basically the same thing as EAR FLAP. Like, someone was just lazy and didn't want to say or write the "F" and so now we've got a stupid variant (not sure which spelling is the variant, actually). Literally, the meaning of EARLAP is EARFLAP. Come on. Can we not collectively agree to throw one of these terms in the sea?
• 39D: ___ Theatre, Atlanta art house named for a fictional estate (TARA) — the "estate" here is the one from Gone With the Wind. Feels like the clue is going out of its way not to mention Gone With the Wind, possibly because it sentimentalizes the "Old South," but the clue somehow has the opposite effect, highlighting the title by referring to it elliptically. Anyway, if you are unfamiliar with Gone With the Wind lore and don't live in Atlanta, I imagine this clue might've been baffling. TARA used to be clued almost exclusively as this estate, or as a place in Ireland. These days, it's much more likely to be someone's name—historically, skater TARA Lipinski has dominated (since her first appearance in 1998), but actress TARA Reid has gotten a lot of play (disproportionate to her actual fame, one might argue), and writer TARA Westover (Educated) also appears from time to time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Rx for a root canal / THU 4-16-26 / Portmanteau for a queer Fortnite player, say / Big payroll service co. / Source of a deal with The Devil? / Fields medalist Terence / Joel's smuggling partner on "The Last of Us" / Ventricle suppliers / Insect nicknamed for its small size / Negation word in French / Fish whose name is Spanish for "pretty"

Constructor: Rafael Musa and Sala Wanetick

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: DOWN / TO A T (63A: With 65-Across, with extreme precision ... or a hint to reading 15 of this puzzle's answers) — Fifteen Down answers end with a "T" that appears not as usual (i.e. in a box like all the other letters) but as a "T"-shaped black-letter formation

Theme answers:

• INDIC(T) (4D: Charge)
• "AM I NO(T)?" (5D: Question from someone seeking reassurance)
• EVEN(T) (12D: Occasion)
• TARO(T) (15D: Source of a deal with The Devil?)
• ATLAS(T) (6D: "Finally!")
• TEASE(T) (7D: Service with cups and saucers)
• DAYS PAS(T) (13D: Previous times)
• BRA(T) (27D: Kid who might get grounded)
• OPEN SEA(T) (14D: Welcome sight in musical chairs)
• DELIS(T) (30D: Take off the market)
  
• ABU(T) (38D: Be against, in a way)
• DIVER(T) (31D: Reroute)
• SCRIP(T) (32D: Something a reality show lacks)
• EGO(T) (40D: Achievement for Whoopi Goldberg and Rita Moreno, in brief)
• BASAL(T) (33D: Igneous rock that makes up most of Venus's surface)

Word of the Day: To a T (65A) —

Precisely; exactly; perfectly; with great attention to detail. // The origins of this phrase are uncertain, but it has been observed in print since at least 1693,^[1] and likely was around well before that. The possibly related phrase to a tittle is found in a 1607 play, The Woman Hater by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher ("I'll quote him to a tittle"). The T in the phrase to a T is likely the first letter of a word, with tittle being the most likely source.

Other theories with little evidence point to golf tees, for their small size; this may have at least influenced the alternative form to a tee. Some speculate a relationship with T-square, a measuring device introduced around the turn of the century. Others claim the expression refers to the correct completion of the letter t by crossing it.

In print from "Two Years Before the Mast" published in 1840, and, even then, using quotes, refers to the practice of squaring up a yardarm with a mast on a sailing ship such that it made a perpendicular T. (wikipedia)

• • •

Well, I finally got a Thursday with some fight in it. I really appreciated that. It wasn't just the theme that made things tough—very tough, early on—it was ... everything. I never really picked up momentum at any point, never flew through any part of this one. A grind from start to finish. It was mostly an enjoyable grind, so I didn't mind, but yeah, no whoosh today. There was one "aha"—the moment I figured out the gist of the theme. But once that happens ... it's just a one-note theme. There's nothing left to discover, except the revealer (unless you started there, which was possibly a good idea today—I did not do this). Speaking of the revealer ... why isn't it resonating with me? It's a phrase I know I've seen, and I can kinda hear someone saying it, but it's overlapping and getting interference with the phrase "done to a turn" (usu. used of food that's cooked perfectly). Is "to a turn" sometimes abbreviated "TO A T?" I know the phrase "down to a science." As for "TO A T," it mostly stands on its own and doesn't need "down." Seems like it's most often preceded by the verb "fits," as in many of these examples I just found (at Grammarist):

My gender has nothing to do with my frustration here: it’s 2011 and I am not Suzy Homemaker from 1952 who follows rigid gender roles to a T. [The Frisky]

It fits to a T the reform pledge that former Mayor Ed Koch circulated during the campaign – signed by 138 of the state’s 212 legislators. [New York Daily News]

[H]e seems like the kind of guy who would value life experience more than possessions, and at times that philosophy fits him to a T.  [Superbike Planet]

After finding out its definition, she decided the word fit her sixth-grade girls team to a T. [The Salem News]

So I acknowledge that DOWN / TO A T is a valid phrase, but it didn't exactly land, to my ears. But it does work in a very literal way for today's concept. I want to call attention to the fact that none of the "T"-ending words look like gibberish in the grid; without the "T," every one of them looks like a real (if unclued) word. That is the kind of elegance of execution a theme like this needs. Maybe some people won't notice, but it's a nice touch.

The puzzle does have a truly ugly SW corner, though. Also, a tough corner (esp. if you don't watch The Last of Us, which I do not). That clue on LEISURE made getting into that corner at all a real challenge. I had SCRIBES and still, even with the first letters of all the downs down there, I was stuck. I had to go down and get SSN and then claw my way back out. Inferring DOWN got me the "W" for RIPSAW, and I was on my way, but yeesh. ADP? American Dollar Processors? Andy's Downtown Payroll? (it's American Data Processing) (51A: Big payroll service co.). Never ever ever a fan of random three-letter initialisms of non-everyday things where the initials are a complete "???" I've seen ADP in puzzles before, but no way that thing is ever sticking. No one would put that answer in their grid if they weren't totally desperate. And CEDE TO ... oof, OK, I guess. As for The Last of Us, I know this is a popular show, but it's HBO popular, which means people who watch it tend to vastly overestimate exactly how many people are watching it. 

Season two's premiere of the post-apocalyptical TV series “The Last of Us” counted 5.3 million viewers across the linear HBO channel and streaming service HBO Max, an increase compared to the first episode of the first season. However, season two's final was watched by only 3.7 million people. The TV show is based on a video game franchise of the same name and was produced by Sony Pictures Television. (staista.com)

I know the show is based on a video game, so maybe this TESS is in the video game too? I dunno. I just know that 55A: Joel's smuggling partner on "The Last of Us" was just a random four-letter name to me, without even any indication of gender. That under ADP (ugh) crossing CEDE TO—ugly. The clue on LEISURE is actually good, though (49A: This isn't working!)—it just made that corner that much harder.

I made mistakes everywhere. TAU for TAO was particularly awful (2D: Fields medalist Terence). In that same NW corner, I had "AM I OK?" at 5D: Question from someone seeking reassurance—that may have been the deepest and most brutal hole I fell into, since that answer felt so right. Oh, and I drink gin ... not infrequently ... but I have never heard gin described as PINEY (18A: Like some gin and cleaning products). I'm not saying no one does this. I'm saying that if you struggled with that answer, I see you, I hear you, I understand, and I would like to validate your feelings about the not-obvious connection between gin and PINEY. Floral? Botanical? London Dry? Old Tom? Sloe? So many words and terms I associate with gin. Gin that takes like cleaning product? Not familiar. Don't know what I had in there at first, but it wasn't PINEY. 

Bullets:

• 14A: ___ Moshtegh, "My Year of Rest and Relaxation" novelist (OTTESSA) — still haven't read her, but I've seen her name (and her books) a bunch over the (recent) years. I knew her name was unusual, but I thought it was even more unusual than it ended up being. "Isn't there an 'H' in there somewhere?" I think I was thinking of her last name. Anyway, I knew this one but didn't know it know it. Kinda surprised to see OTTESSA and TESS in the same grid. They may be unrelated names, but they feel and look related.
  

• 1D: X, for one (APP) — now I'm remembering why getting started was such slow going. I got ATRIA fine, but "confirmed" it with TAU (wrong), and then couldn't "confirm" any of the other Downs. With three of those Downs, the reason was obvious (I didn't know what was going on with the theme). But with APP, ugh. &^#$%! why is the deranged billionaire white supremacist guy's right-wing disinformation pig sty of an APP in here? So many APPs in the world! So! Many! I know, I know, X gives you the opportunity to misdirect people. Congrats, it worked ... 
• 16A: Performer known for her runs (POP DIVA) — vocal runs

• 11A: Rx for a root canal (PAIN MED) — oof, yet another reason that NW was tough. Nothing particularly "root canal"-y about a PAIN MED (which looks a little odd to me in the singular, but I'll allow it).
• 43D: Tool with coarse teeth (RIPSAW) — had the "R" and wrote in RASPER for some reason (!?!?!)
• 15D: Source of a deal with The Devil? (TARO(T)) — even knowing the "T" gimmick, I struggled with this one. The Devil is a card in a standard TAROT deck.

• 27D: Kid who might get grounded (BRA(T)) — the answer where I (finally) figured out the "T" thing. First thought there was some kind of wordplay going on, like maybe the "Kid" was a goat, or else "grounded" was going to have some airplane-type meaning, I don't know. But the crosses all filled in pretty easily and then I was like "BRA? But that's missing a letter. Where's the ... ohhhhh, there it is." I then went back up and took care of that formerly impossible NW corner:

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

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Letterboxd]
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