Hits the exchange, in Wall Street lingo / THU 3-13-25 / Online shorthand for "offline" / Hit up privately on "the socials" / Sorts with unruly hair / Aired in multiple places at the same time / What un sachet de thé is put into / 1982 George Clinton hit with the refrain "Bow wow wow, yippie yo, yippie yay" / Big name in nail polish / Juggling chainsaws on a tightrope, for instance

Constructor: Rich Proulx and Simeon Seigel

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (Easy once you get the gimmick)

THEME: DOUBLE DIP (61A: Commit a party foul, in a way ... or what five answers do in this puzzle?) — theme answers appear to be inapt; to make sense of them, you need to "dip" down twice, picking up first the triangled square and then the circled square located just underneath the themer itself:

Theme answers:

• SIMULCASTED (16A: Aired in multiple places at the same time) (picking up the "C" and "S" from CSIS (20A: Collectors of forensic evidence, for short)
• MOPHEADS (21A: Sorts with unruly hair) (picking up the "H" and "A" from HASH (26A: Potpourri))
• FIRELIGHT (37A: Burning glow) (picking up the "I" and "L" from ISLES (41A: Cays, e.g.))
• CAP PISTOL (39A: Toy shooter) (picking up the "P" from "I'M UP" (42A: "That's my cue!") and the "S" from SOFA (44A: Possible sleeping spot for a partner who's in the doghouse))
• CARSEATS (54A: Items for babies on board) (picking up the "S" and "A" from CESAR (60A: Farmworker organizer Chavez))

Word of the Day: "ATOMIC DOG" (34D: 1982 George Clinton hit with the refrain "Bow wow wow, yippie yo, yippie yay") —

"Atomic Dog" is a song by George Clinton, released by Capitol Records in December 1982, as the second and final single from his studio album, Computer Games (1982). It became the P-Funk collective's last to reach #1 on the U.S. R&B Chart. The single failed to chart on the Billboard Hot 100 although it has attained a level of stature since then, partly due to having been sampled in several hip hop songs. // George Clinton's P-Funk reached its commercial and conceptual height during the late 1970s after the release of Mothership Connection in 1975 and a series of spectacular concert tours. Each of these concerts ended with a climactic descent of a giant spaceship from the rafters. However, as the band and their concept of funk grew, the organization became entangled in internal dissension, legal disputes, and creative exhaustion. "Atomic Dog" was the P-Funk collective's last single to reach #1 on the U.S. R&B chart. // According to Clinton, most of the song's lyrics were ad-libbed during the recording process.

• • •

Yet another puzzle where the grim fill really diminished the experience. So much muck to wade through. A good example of gimmick-at-all-costs, where an architecturally complex theme rides roughshod over the grid's overall quality. After enduring UVEA EAU PLO DMED IEDS ESSIE and then encountering a FREIGHT that made no clear sense, I decided that I did not want to spend any more time discovering the theme than I had to, so I jumped down to where I (correctly) assumed the revealer would be, in the SE. The short fill was easy enough to get that the revealer, DOUBLE DIP, soon became clear, which immediately made it clear how FREIGHT would make sense (i.e. by "double-dipping" and picking up the "I" and "L" to make FIRELIGHT). After that, there was nothing left to do but fill the grid. The themers held no more mystery; there was no second level to the theme, no thematic connection among the theme answers. The triangle ended up being essentially meaningless as a shape (a disappointment—why introduce a novel shape when it didn't have a novel meaning?). The "dipped" letters didn't spell anything. You just dip twice. Five times. And suffer through a lot of ugly short fill. That's it. [UPDATE: for the second day in a row, I totally missed a theme element—the triangles are CHIPS and they spell out CHIPS, and the circles spell out SALSA; very impressive ... sadly, my solving experience was still pretty miserable] There are some fun longer Downs along the way, but the essential dullness of the theme and the sheer volume of boring-to-actively-unpleasant 3-4-5s made this one less than enjoyable, on the whole.

["Just let me hold you by the ..."]

It's really the DMED / LCD / CSIS / AAS mash-up that ended any goodwill I might've had toward this puzzle. Oh, and the adjacent GOES IPO (6D: Hits the exchange, in Wall Street lingo), which ... yeah, bizness jargon, however original, is never going to be my thing (see also golf jargon, poker jargon, etc.), and this particular phrase just sounds silly. It's not like I don't know what IPO means (initial public offering)—I solve crosswords every day, as you know—but this phrase seems particularly ridiculous, and looks it, too. I am currently enjoying pronouncing it as one word (GO-suh-PO!). But let's say that that answer isn't inherently bad, just bad in my ears. Fine. But the short fill problem still stands. Also, we have UNCAST *and* SIMULCASTED in the same grid? Also, SIMULCASTED??? I would've thought the past tense of "simulcast" was ... "simulcast." Extremely cut-off NE and SW corners added another somewhat infelicitous feature to the grid (they're like separate puzzles, and because both have theme content, it seems likely that if you have any trouble with this theme, you probably had trouble there, particularly in the NE). But, again, the real problem here (aside from a not terribly interesting concept), is GSU NAS ABE EKE CHI IPAS MSN TAEBO (for god's sake!) and on and on. Just a parade of tedium, headlined by not one not two but three online initialisms: TBH IRL OTOH ("to be honest," "in real life," "on the other hand") (with DMED trying to make it a foursome). There really ought to be an online initialism limit. Say, two. Two is good. 

Bullet points:

• 8A: Delivery people? (MAMAS) — wanted OB/GYNS ... in fact, kinda sorta wanted GYNOS (is that an acceptable abbrev.?). Nothing cuing the slang of MAMAS in the clue. Not a fan.
• 22A: Hit up privately on "the socials" (DMED) — Why are quot. marks around "the socials"? Yes, it's slang, but you. may as well put quotation marks around "Hit up" if that's your logic. (DMED means "direct messaged," in case that's not a thing in your world)
• 63A: Last word of the last multiple-choice option, maybe (ABOVE) — as someone who frequently has multiple-choice sections in the exams he gives, I found it comical how long it took me to get this answer. It just wouldn't compute. "... OTHER?" (the "ABOVE" comes from "all (or none) of the ABOVE," presumably)
• 64A: Month with the newest federal holiday, recognized in 2021 (JUNE) — the holiday in question is Juneteenth, which commemorates the end of slavery in America. Look for this particular federal holiday to be rescinded in 3, 2, 1 ...
• 10D: Companion of Jason in the search for the Golden Fleece (MEDEA) — the looooove boat ... such a happy couple, I'm sure they're gonna do great ... 
• 34D: 1982 George Clinton hit with the refrain "Bow wow wow, yippie yo, yippie yay" ("ATOMIC DOG") — I was gonna dispute "hit" but #1 on the R&B charts is definitely a hit. It never made the Billboard Hot 100, but that "refrain" became universally recognizable in the early '90s for one particular reason ...

I'm realizing now that it's possible there are solvers who won't understand the "party foul" in question today. If you dip a chip in dip, take a bite, and then dip it *again*—that's a DOUBLE DIP, and that's a "party foul" (for hygiene reasons). That should do it, see you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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War room briefings, in military shorthand / SUN 1-26-25 / Pioneers of freeze-drying food / Ridge in metalworking / Annual observance for breast cancer awareness / ___ Urquhart, co-host of the podcast "Morbid" / Aid for using Bluetooth / Riveting persona of W.W. II / White House dog of the 1980s / Storage devices made obsolete by MP3 players / Water feature created by rising sea levels / Place for a white picket fence and a mom-and-pop shop / What "fitz-" or "-ovic mean, in names

Constructor: Rich Proulx

Relative difficulty: Medium except NW corner, where I was stalled for (seemingly) ever...

THEME: "Letter Openers" — seven Down answers have clues that are REBUSES (a term spelled out by the circled letters when the grid is completed); that is, the clues for those Downs are given in rebus (i.e. picture puzzle) form: "CIRCLED LETTER + [some picture]," in every case; the answers to those Down clues end up being the clues for the Across answers that run through the circled squares:

Theme answers:

["R" + CANE = ARCANE => CLEAR AS MUD (22A)]

["E" + ROAD = ERODE => EAT AWAY (29A)]

["B" + TRAY = BETRAY => BACKSTAB (42A)]

["U" + KNIT = UNIT => WORK GROUP (64A)]

["S" + CAPE = ESCAPE => SIDESTEP (87A)]

["E" + MITT = EMIT => GIVE OFF (98A)]

["S" + PIE = ESPY => HAVE EYES ON (111A)]

Word of the Day: SITREPS (80A: War room briefings, in military shorthand) —

: a periodic report of the current military situation (merriam-webster.com) (emph. mine)

• • •

Painful. Child's placemat puzzles incorporated into a very complicated theme. Not "complicated" in a good way, but ... fussy. I'm sure this was hard to make, architecturally, but there was virtually no "aha" payoff to any of this. That one point where I (finally) figured out that the REBUS answers were in fact the clues for the Across crosses—that was an "aha" of sorts, but it leaned more toward exasperated "oh." The pictures in the rebus clues were embarrassingly crude. And the rebus answers only kinda sorta worked as clues for their respective Acrosses much of the time. All that, just so we could spell out ... REBUSES at the end? "Be Sure To Drink Your Ovaltine" was a more exciting reveal.

WORK GROUP is a UNIT?? Isn't ... anything ... a UNIT? One of anything? I don't even know what WORK GROUP is. Is that a group that works ... together? And ARCANE and CLEAR AS MUD are totally different things. The former denotes something esoteric, known solely or primarily by an initiated group, whereas the latter denotes something hopelessly confusing. Parsing CLEAR AS MUD was so hard ... but ultimately it was the *only* reason I was able to complete the NW corner *at all*. Everything (I mean Everything) east of ARCANE and north of AIL in that section was a big old blank for me. Just empty space. I had STD written in at 9D: P.S.T. part: Abbr., but I didn't trust it (PAC?). And then at 18A: Lifted one's spirits? ... MADEA...?!?!!??! I was thinking of all the "spirits," including liquor, and still couldn't parse that (MADE A TOAST). The INCAS pioneered freeze-drying!? (5A: Pioneers of freeze-drying food). LOL I definitely wanted a brand name there (FOLGERS? MAXWELL HOUSE?). No idea that ASU (Arizona State) had the biggest enrollment. No idea what a [Temporary residence] could be at 7D. Thought 6D: Without regard to privacy (NOSILY) was OPENLY. And EAR CLIP, oof. Is that what that stupid thing is called? (25A: Aid for using Bluetooth). EARPIECE was what I wanted? EAR BUD? Kinda wanted CLIP, but EAR CLIP sounded like jewelry. And then there was the clue on ITALIC (5D: Just like that!). Brutal. Even with the "-IC." Wanted MAGIC. Or PRESTO or VOILA! I've never had so much white space for so long in any section of a Sunday. I rarely get that stuck even on Saturdays. But finally CLEAR AS MUD (fitting!) got me traction and I crawled out of there. Everything seemed (relatively) easy after that.

Tapping the "Not All Debuts Are Good" sign again, strenuously, at SITREPS, which sounds like something you do at the gym. Needed every single cross to get that one, never heard it in my life. And then there’s NO-BRA DAY (74A: Annual observance for breast cancer awareness), which I've also never heard of, but which at least seems like a real thing that people *might* know about, or say, or participate in, unlike SITREPS, which seems like nonsense, like an unholy fusion of at least six words. Laughed out loud at KNURL, which is possibly the stupidest-sounding word in the English language (66D: Ridge in metalworking). Just say it out loud—you feel silly, right? Sounds like you made it up. Or, like, it's part of some imaginary creature, a cryptozoological body part, perhaps at the base of the antennae. "VENUSians are able to read human thoughts due to an organ located at the base of their well-developed KNURLs." As for SOFT A, I think of "soft" as related to consonants (SOFT G was in the puzzle very recently—that's the "G" in "gem" vs. the "G" in "guts," which is a HARD G). I think of vowels as either "short" or "long." So "SOFT A" is odd to me, though I'm sure I've seen it before. Bizarrely, when I look up [define "soft a"], the top hits are all about differentiating a certain racial slur ("hard R") from a more familiar / less derogatory term in African-American Vernacular English. In fact, this is the primary (sole) example used in the wiktionary definition of "SOFT A." It's hard to remember a part of this solve that seemed genuinely enjoyable—probably seeing Isabella ROSSELLINI, clued for her brief and nearly-silent but still stunning role in Conclave (109A: "Conclave" actress Isabella). I hope she wins that Oscar.

[Her little bow at the end of her speech to the Cardinals—dagger! I laughed out loud]

Notes:

• 90A: Gordon ___ engineer with a "law" predicting a doubling of transistors on microchips every two years (MOORE) — and human beings lived happily ever after, The End
• 20A: Riveting persona of W.W. II (ROSIE) — Rosie the Riveter, icon of women in the (wartime) workforce.

• 34D: White House dog of the 1980s (REX) — I have no memory of this. I remember Millie, the Bushes' dog. That is the only presidential pet of the '80s that I remember. Why not just name the president??? I assume it's Reagan. Yeah, here we go. A Cavalier King Charles Spaniel that Reagan gave to Nancy in 1984. I was too busy going through puberty to notice, apparently.
• 45D: ___ Urquhart, co-host of the podcast "Morbid" (ALAINA) — wow, this clue couldn't have been more gibberish to me if it tried. Names I've never heard of, podcasts I've never heard of. Truly a perfect storm of my particular pop culture ignorance. Ah, no wonder I don't know it. Ask me how I feel about the "true crime" genre in general. I find most of it exploitative and creepy. But I admit I'm an outlier here. You all seem to love it. It's a very popular podcast.
• 14D: Storage devices made obsolete by MP3 players (MINIDISCS) — were these ever ... "solete?" I mean, for something to become "obsolete," doesn't it first have to be popular? 
• 1D: Network owned by Showtime (TMC) — The Movie Channel. This was another reason I struggled in the NW. In retrospect, TMC is sorta obvious, but I definitely had other "T" networks in there at times (TNT, TBS, TCM ... TNN, is that something?)
• 93D: Theseus' need in the Labyrinth (THREAD) — because "HELP FROM ARIADNE, WHOM HE WOULD LATER ABANDON" wouldn't fit.

Enjoy the rest of your day. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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French trick-taking game / Prognosticate with a crystal ball / Traditional folk song played by British and Australian ice cream trucks / Worker designation coined by Upton Sinclair / Hindi for palace / Steve with eight NBA championships

Constructor: Rich Proulx

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: COAT OF MANY COLORS (38A: Envy source in Genesis 37 that hints at 18-, 24-, 49- and 58-Across) — familiar two-part theme answers all happen to follow a similar pattern: [color] + [coat part]:

Word of the Day: Jonathan Safran FOER (39D: Author Jonathan Safran ___) —

Jonathan Safran Foer (/fɔːr/; born February 21, 1977) is an American novelist. He is known for his novels Everything Is Illuminated (2002), Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2005), Here I Am (2016), and for his non-fiction works Eating Animals (2009) and We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast (2019). He teaches creative writing at New York University. (wikipedia)

• • •

JOYLESS? (28A: Devoid of pleasure). No, it would be very unfair to call this puzzle JOYLESS, but for a while there, I was worried. The fill set off alarm bells very early, and that alarm was not a false one. I spent the top half of the solve repeatedly wincing, stunned at all the repeaters, all the crosswordese, old and new, that kept scurrying out from every clue I turned over. Scurrying, SCREE-ing, and SCRY-ing they came. I knew right *here* that I was in trouble (I was so certain that I stopped to take a screenshot, just so I could document the exact moment that dread kicked in):

Actually, this isn't the first screenshot I took. the first one just had OHIO (fine) SRO (pfffff...) and LAHR (pffffffffffff...), but then when I *immediately* thereafter ran into a *partial* palace name (MAHAL), I took another shot. After that it was a rough run through SCRY LAIC AER across ECARTE and ARIEL up to SCREE ECCE, down to "PSST, EROS" and so on and so on. TORI TARSI. I'll stop now, but it really was like having garbage thrown at me while I solved. Like running some kind of unpleasant obstacle course. The only lucky thing that happened was that I didn't actually see the theme for the longest time. I got a couple theme answers and thought "yeah yeah, first words are colors, fine," and I went down the east side all the way to the bottom before eventually doubling back and, with all the theme answers now in place, looking at the revealer clue for the first time (with only the back end filled in). And why was this solving pattern "lucky?" Because the theme ... is good. Turned a JOYLESS solve into something much more tolerable. I'm not sure I'd say the theme was "worth it," but I felt like it got me within shouting distance of "worth it," at least. I had a real "aha" or "OH I GET IT" (*or* "I SEE!") moment. Nice wordplay twist on a familiar biblical phrase. The one thing I don't really like about the theme is YELLOW TAILS—I love it as a standalone answer, but "TAILS" forces me to think of this as old-fashioned men's formalwear (a dress coat), whereas COLLAR, SLEEVES, and LINING are generic enough that I can imagine whatever kind of coat I want. Why not lose YELLOW TAILS, turn the WHITE collar BLUE, and add RED BUTTONS as your fourth themer? Now my coat imagination is free!

No real trouble with this one. No difficulty, that is. I wanted POP-UP before BLOOP for the very first clue I saw (1A: Weak hit), but that was one of the very few answers that caused me to slow down much at all. When you solve a lot of crosswords, and have been solving them since well before the end of the 20th century, ECARTE is just there in your bag of tricks, so if it baffled you, just remember: you are normal (32A: French trick-taking game). I didn't know Simu LIU but I do know Lucy LIU so the name was easy to infer. I wanted SELLS to be SELL because of the clue wording (14D: What sex does, they say). What sex does is sell. The fact that I can write that sentence and that it makes total sense shows why SELL seemed right. But sex SELLS, yes, I SEE. I was just following your lead on the cluing, but if you want me to start the sentence over for myself, then yes, sex SELLS. Why not just use the clue [Sex ___]. That would've been wicked. Maybe you need quotation marks: ["Sex ___"]. Think of the fun wrong answers people could've written in!

That's enough for today. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Performer's grand slam in modern parlance / THU 9-30-21 / Calif school that's about 20 miles from the Mexican border / Major Chinese internet company / Pregnancy hormone / Acqua cause of annual flooding in Venice

Constructor: Rich Proulx

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: SOUND MIXING (57A: Academy Awards category eliminated in 2021 ... or a hint to interpreting four clues in this puzzle) — familiar two-word (or two-part) phrases clued as the "mixing" of two "sounds," i.e. as equations following this pattern: [sound] + [sound] = [regular clue]:

Theme answers:

• TWITTER BUZZ (17A: [Birds] + [Bees] = P.R. campaign goal)
• HUMDRUM (26A: [Lightsaber] + [Impatient fingers] = Boring)
• RING POP (36A: [Cellphone] + [Bubble] = Edible accessory)
• LOW ROLL (48A: [Cow] + [Thunder] = Snake eyes, e.g.)

Word of the Day: RELAXIN (44D: Pregnancy hormone) —

Relaxin is a protein hormone of about 6000 Da first described in 1926 by Frederick Hisaw. ["Da" = Dalton, "a unit used in expressing the molecular weight of proteins, equivalent to atomic mass unit."]

The relaxin-like peptide family belongs in the insulin superfamily and consists of 7 peptides of high structural but low sequence similarity; relaxin-1 (RLN1), 2 (RLN2) and 3 (RLN3), and the insulin-like (INSL) peptides, INSL3, INSL4, INSL5 and INSL6. The functions of relaxin-3, INSL4, INSL5, and INSL6 remain uncharacterised. [...] In the female, it is produced by the corpus luteum of the ovary, the breast and, during pregnancy, also by the placenta, chorion, and decidua.

In the male, it is produced in the prostate and is present in human semen. (wikipedia)

• • •

So you're telling me MOOROLL is not a thing?

I didn't know SOUND MIXING was an Academy Award to begin with, so the MIXING part was weirdly hard for me to get at the end. I had DESIGN in there at first. Then tried to cram in EDITING. But MIXING much better expresses the whole sound equation thing happening in the theme clues today, which I think basically works—that is, these themers are all phrases made out of the combination ("mixing") of two sounds. The equation gimmick is clever, even if the themers do end up essentially double-clued. I can imagine the theme clues being written with the first part dropped entirely, such that the revealer would cause you to look back and notice, "oh, right, those are indeed two sounds mixed together," but I think it's more fun to have the weird sound equation thing going on. It puts the theme into the mix, allowing it to be visible and relevant to the solve throughout the puzzle instead of just something you notice at the end. It makes the theme a lot easier to crack than usual, but the difficult-ish cluing overall, as well as two terms I've never seen in my life, made the overall solving experience reasonably Thursday-ish in the end. 

Not only had I never heard of BAIDU (12D: Major Chinese internet company) or RELAXIN, I had no way of inferring any part of those answers, any single letter, and so working the crosses was really harrowing. If even one went wrong, or was at all ambiguous, I was going to be in a hell of a lot of trouble. As for the BAIDU crosses, the only one that seems at all potentially problematic is ABE—maybe you aren't familiar with old NYC mayors—but I don't know what else the name could be with an A_E pattern. Doubtful any mayor was ever named ACE or AXE. As for RELAXIN, the weak link there is SNERT—a familiar bit of crosswordese to anyone who's been solving the puzzle since the 20th century, but not exactly a name that is current or *at all* inferrable. I can definitely see the Hagar the Horrible-ignorant among us going for some different letter in the "N"'s place ... though I can't really imagine what that letter would be. Looks like -IN is the most common hormone name ending, so maybe the "N" was more inferrable than I thought. Anyway, I got everything right. BAIDU and RELAXIN were just completely new to me, and particularly hard to get (not surprisingly, neither one has ever been an entry in the NYTXW before).

The fill is a little rough in places. The whole NW and N is kind of a wreck (ALTA ADMIN ANNO + ASSOC USBS LSU all abbrev-clustered together there). OXES is a pretty awful stretch (34D: Dumb ___ (buffoons)). AS A PIN is bottom-of-the-barrel stuff, even (especially?) with the cutesy "?" clue (24A: Neat analogy?). I have heard of data mining, but never thought of a single DATA MINER as a thing (I'm imagining someone at their keyboard with overalls and a little lamp helmet on). My only complaint there is that I think of data mining as much more nefarious / surveillance-y than simply "searching for patterns in the statistical noise," so the answer itself bums me out a little. I would normally be very bummed out by LIZ Cheney as well, but since she's vociferously anti-Trump (and anti-Trumpist), I'm gonna let her pass. I wrote her in first as LYN, but that's her mom (spelled "Lynne"). I guess "DO" is duped in "YES I DO" and UPDO, but I really DO not care. Really liked COZY UP TO and "I'M ALL OUT" . This feels like the first puzzle I've (mostly) liked in a while. A harbinger of a good weekend ahead (I'm choosing to believe).

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Potent strain of marijuana / WED 10-14-20 / Soap that comes in blue-green bars / Low creaky speaking register / Biblical kingdom in modern day Jordan

Constructor: Rich Proulx

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (~5 min.)

THEME: hand jive — the meanings of hand gestured, clued using ordinal numbers to describe what the various DIGITs do in each gesture (66A: What each number in the starred clues represents):

Theme answers:

• HANG LOOSE (18A: *1st and 5th)
• VULCAN SALUTE (24A: *1st separate, 2nd and 3rd together, and 4th and 5th together)
• VICTORY (39A: *2nd and 3rd separated)
• "CAN I GET A LIFT?" (49A: *1st)
• "HOPEFULLY..." (60A: *2nd and 3rd crossed)

Word of the Day: VOCAL FRY (39D: Low, creaky speaking register) —

The vocal fry register (also known as pulse register, laryngealization, pulse phonation, creak, croak, popcorning, glottal fry, glottal rattle, glottal scrape, or strohbass) is the lowest vocal register and is produced through a loose glottal closure that permits air to bubble through slowly with a popping or rattling sound of a very low frequency. During this phonation, the arytenoid cartilages in the larynx are drawn together, which causes the vocal folds to compress rather tightly and become relatively slack and compact. This process forms a large and irregularly vibrating mass within the vocal folds that produces the characteristic low popping or rattling sound when air passes through the glottal closure. The register (if well controlled) can extend far below the modal voice register, in some cases up to 8 octaves lower, such as in the case of Tim Storms who holds the world record for lowest frequency note ever produced by a human, a G₋₇, which is only 0.189 Hz, inaudible to the human ear. (wikipedia)

• • •

The theme is fine but getting through this felt like running a punishing gauntlet, where lots and lots of tired fill just kinda shove you around and poke you in your ears and stuff. The problem started at 1-Across, to be honest (1A: Lab test) (ASSAY). Fine word, you might say, and, uh, OK, yeah, it's a word, but it is crosswordy, in that I only ever see it there, and I see it not infrequently; and when words like that pile up, yikes. And it's not just the repeaters, it's the rando stuff like ACTIV and the crosswordese place names like LHASA and LOIRE and then LAO ATOP ASEA PTA SARI GRU etc. on full blast for the whole 15x15 experience. HORAE!? GELID!? Also, there's this ultra-annoying little tendency toward Scrabble-f*cking, with the X and Z and multiple Ks shoved into the grid to either no good or very bad effect. None of these letters are giving you much bang for your buck, and the sections they're in aren't exactly pretty, so what the heck is even happening? AKNOT? Is your "K" worth that? Letters aren't interesting—good fill is interesting. Clean grids are pleasant. That's the direction you want to go in. If you go in that direction, then people can focus on the theme you came up with, which is presumably where you want them to focus.

I've got green ink alllllll over my puzzle print-out. A lot of it is just flagging the tiresome fill, but some if it indicates trouble spots. I can never process [Word that does this if you do this thing to it]-type clues, so SHE (15A: Word that becomes its own opposite if its first letter is removed), crossing a "?" clue in ASH (6D: Outcome of being fired?), crossing LHASA (which I wanted to be either LAPAZ or SUCRE), that whole area caused a bit of a slow-down. Also totally blanked on HORAE, a term I know because I teach classical literature sometimes but omg there are so many groups of goddesses and my brain apparently just can't keep them all sorted (36D: Goddesses of the seasons). Went for ICEIN before FOGIN, of course (53D: Strand at an airport, maybe). I think that's it for genuine sticking points. Except, no, I had trouble with the FRY part of VOCAL FRY, a phenomenon which is somehow both a widespread scourge and a thing I've never heard of, or ... possibly have heard of but have never properly understood. I thought it was just the rasp you get after yelling at, say, a concert or sporting event. It seems like such a slangy recent coinage that the simple word "register" didn't clue me in. 

I will close by displaying contempt for 59A: Display contempt for, in a way (SPIT ON), but I'm just gonna sneer at it because spitting in general is repulsive and spitting *on* someone is beyond the pale. Even as a metaphor, gross. 

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. Happy birthday to my wife, who is the best

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Joey Dee's backup group in 1960s pop / FRI 7-17-20 / Game played on 90-foot long court / Annual three-day celebration / Pinball player's undoing / Tokyo-based carrier / Woman's name in English that's man's name in Catalan

Constructor: Rich Proulx

Relative difficulty: Medium (6-something)

THEME: face — actually, none ... but the grid is a creepy face, for some reason

Word of the Day: GESSO (5D: Painter's mixture) —

Gesso (Italian pronunciation: [ˈdʒɛsso]; "chalk", from the Latin: gypsum, from Greek: γύψος) is a white paint mixture consisting of a binder mixed with chalk, gypsum, pigment, or any combination of these. It is used in artwork as a preparation for any number of substrates such as wood panels, canvas and sculpture as a base for paint and other materials that are applied over it. (wikipedia)

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With so much short stuff cutting through the longer answers, this really looked like it was going to be a cinch, but those longer answers were so odd or off my wavelength that I was actually slower than usual. I don't understand what this grid is trying to do. I don't understand the grid-art face. I don't understand why, when you are making a themeless and can do *anything* you want, you go with *these* longer answers, none of which are in any way interesting. The one with the strongest claim to interesting is TILT MECHANISM, but ... what?? (33A: Pinball player's undoing). I've heard of "Tilt!" of course, but the phrase TILT MECHANISM is something I've never heard or seen. Did this come from somebody's wordlist? Why would you choose to put this in your grid? I mean, AUTO PARTS STORES ... what is that doing for you? (8D: Hose and belt sellers) How is that enlivening things? You have so much Freedom when filling a grid like this and AUTO PARTS STORES and STATE LEGISLATORS are your marquee answers? That's how you use your Freedom? The fill isn't really bad, but it's definitely not good either, and again, you have No constraints from a theme, so you have No excuses. Did you think smiley-face grid art would make it all OK? It just makes it all a little bit more insipid.


I have no idea who Joey Dee is, so you can be damn sure I don't know who the STARLITERS are (10D: Joey Dee's backup group in 1960s pop, with "the"). That whole center area was a near disaster as NEAR DISASTERS was very hard to see—had the NEAR; it didn't help, since it's just a synonym for "close." I assumed [Close ones] were relatives or friends. Kept wanting some version of "near and dear." And then there's the ART TEACHER clue (11D: One who might grade on the curve?). Even now, that "?" clue is inscrutable to me. She might grade on "the" curve? Not "a" curve? The phrase is "grade on *a* curve." Why is it "the"? Is that supposed to make it more like an art thing? I get (I think) that the teacher is grading you on the curves in your drawing or painting or whatever, but ... is that really what you're graded on in art class? And just the one curve? If you're going to get cute with the "?" clues, there shouldn't be room misinterpretation when all is said and done—hit your DAMN mark. Speaking of DAMN, that answer probably held me up more than anything else, as both DRAT and DARN seemed somehow more probable (45D: "Nuts!"). Having wrong answers there meant SOLO PERFORMER was really, really hard to see (54A: Person with no one to play with) until I finally had the front end (i.e. the SOLO part). In the end, this was disappointingly anemic. GERITOL crossing STARLITERS tell you much, if not all, you need to know about this one. Nothing new / fresh / current / sparkly about it. What a waste of a Friday.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Optimistic maxim from Virgil / WED 2-12-20 / Lorena who was #1 female golfer for 158 consecutive weeks / parents grandparents in teen lingo / Overly optimistic 1910's appellation / Team sharing arena with Flyers informally

Constructor: Rich Proulx

Relative difficulty: Easy (3:23, first thing in the morning)

THEME: GOD (62A: What each set of circled letters is, relative to the first word in its answer) — non-consecutive circled letters contain name of the god of [first word in the answer]. Thus

Theme answers:

• LOVE CONQUERS ALL (17A: Optimistic maxim from Virgil) contains VENUS
• DEATH AND TAXES (27A: Reliable things, to Ben Franklin) contains HADES 
• THUNDERSTORMS (43A: They make loud noises during showers) contains THOR
• WAR TO END ALL WARS (54A: Overly optimistic 1910s appellation) contains ARES 

Word of the Day: TENT SHOW (6D: Circus) —

noun

an exhibition or performance, especially a circus, presented in a tent. (dictionary.com)

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Definitely a step up from most non-consecutive-circled-letter puzzles, because of the added first-word element, but those ragged circles are still ragged circles, and finding words like that inside of long phrases just has never impressed me very much. I think the theme is good enough, but the execution has some bumpiness. You've got a very Eurocentric GOD assortment, with the Norse god really standing out like an odd duck among the Greek/Romans. Also, your revealer is just .... GOD? That's it? There has to be a better way to do this. This is one of those days when having a *title* on weekday puzzles would really really help. Then you can suggest the whole GOD thing in the title without having to spoil everything with a painfully straightforward revealer and its clunky clue. Or ... maybe this one would still need a revealer, even with a title ... but if so, it needs something better than what it's got. Also, smaller issue, but it's *THE* WAR TO END ALL WARS, and the clue for it should definitely have "with 'The'" tacked on to the end. And speaking of clunky clues—that one (54A: Overly optimistic 1910s appellation). The word "appellation" would like to object to being used in this vague, absurd way. So would "1910s." I'm sure it's hard to clue this answer without using the word "WAR," but try harder. Oh, and one more thing about themer clues: DEATH AND TAXES are "certain" (in the Ben Franklin quotation), not merely "reliable." Also also, "Ben." Why the informality. Just say "Franklin" or use his full first name, unless the shortening has something to do with the answer. Pay more attention to cluing!


Clue on TENT SHOW is bad, in that a [Circus] is a *kind* of TENT SHOW. [Circus, for one] would work. The editing has not been tight at all lately. Not that big a fan of a single ALTOID, but I guess it's fair. Better than CERT (is that the singular of CERTS?), and definitely better than, say, ARREAR. Fill gets a little ragged in places, esp. the SW (EPI ALLA ATAD REA AMO), but I very much liked BAT GUANO and SIDELONG. I guess I've heard THE OLDS before (8D: Parents and grandparents, in teen lingo), but thankfully my own teen daughter (who is, let's be clear, a big fan of giving me s***t for all kinds of reasons) has never used that horrible condescending phrase. Well, not around me, anyway :) Lost time trying to parse that phrase, and also writing in ETNA instead of OSSA (26D: Mount near Olympus) (nice sort-of GOD tie-in!). Not much else to slow me down here. Struggled most with the last answer (why does this always happen!?), which was "I MEANT" (59A: "Let me try that again ..."). Nothing in the clue suggested the act of speaking, so I had to run all the short Downs in that SW corner to finally put the final nail in this one. Overall, a qualified thumbs-up.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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