Network debut of 1981 / FRI 9-11-26 / ___ Ann (classic Lily Tomlin character) / U.S. senators Warnock and Duckworth, for two / Film composer Silvestri / Chip source, informally / Jazz Age Disney princess / Guard at the gates of Mordor / Blue ___ (coral reef swimmers like Pixar's Dory) / Assessment of something enjoyed ironically

Constructor: Robyn Weintraub

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: ALAN Silvestri (46D: Film composer Silvestri) —

Alan Anthony Silvestri (born March 26, 1950) is an American composer, conductor, orchestrator and music producer of film scores. He has received two Grammy Awards and two Primetime Emmy Awards as well as nominations for two Academy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards.

He has been associated with director Robert Zemeckis since 1984, composing music for nearly all of his feature films, including the Back to the Future film series (1985–1990), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), Death Becomes Her (1992), Forrest Gump (1994), Contact (1997), What Lies Beneath (2000), Cast Away (2000), The Polar Express (2004), Beowulf (2007), Flight (2012) and The Walk (2015).

Silvestri also scored many other popular movies, including Predator (1987), The Abyss (1989), Father of the Bride (1991), The Bodyguard (1992), Eraser (1996), The Parent Trap (1998), Practical Magic (1998), Stuart Little (1999), The Mummy Returns (2001), Lilo & Stitch (2002), Van Helsing (2004), the first three Night at the Museum films, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009), The A-Team (2010), Ready Player One (2018), and five Marvel Cinematic Universe films: Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), The Avengers (2012), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Avengers: Endgame (2019) and Avengers: Doomsday (2026). (wikipedia)

• • •

[God-tier candy] 

On most days, after I've fed the cats and gotten some water, I come up here to my office, open the puzzle up, and start stumbling along with my solving without (initially) looking down to see who the constructor is. I don't know how I developed this habit, but I've usually had a stab at the NW corner, at least, before I glance down to see who made the damn puzzle. Sometimes I look down with appreciation, sometimes I look down with anger. Well, disappointment, anyway. So it was very funny (to me) today when I worked my way through the SKA-not-RUM and the "oh that kind of 'anchor'" (DESK) and "omg what was that Lily Tomlin character's name!?!?"-ness of the NW and then hit the first whoosh! (OSCAR PARTY), and then, midway through writing in the second whoosh! ("GENIUS IDEA!") I literally thought "Is this Robyn? This feels like Robyn," looked down, and lol, whaddya know! I love that "GENIUS IDEA!" is the answer that gave it away. Sorry to predictably love another RW joint but she's just on another level and you (I) can feel it. Twelve (12) marquee answers, at least eleven of which are good, and at least half a dozen of which are "hell yeah" good. There's such great voice here. Slanginess, colloquialness, but most of it not at all niche or obscure or strangely worded or otherwise irksome. Just stuff you hear all the time but don't necessarily expect to see in a crossword. "GENIUS IDEA!" "THAT DOES IT!" "PLEASE DON'T GO!" SO BAD IT'S GOOD. Even something as simple as "LET ME KNOW" really sings when it's in a clean grid alongside all these other winners. Someone should solve this in GLITTER PEN, because it deserves it (not sure if that would be legible, but who cares: sparkly pen for a sparkly puzzle!)

Though the puzzle played pretty easy overall (those whooshes really did their job, whooshing me from one section to the next), I did spin my wheels and make a mistake or two, here and there. As I said (above, re: SKA, DESK, EDITH), getting off the ground involved a little effort, and then after a lot of whooshing, on the other side of the grid, after correcting GLITTER GUN to GLITTER PEN (had the GLIT- in place, missed the "prose" part of the clue), I hit 43A: Comforts, and off the "SO-" I wrote in .... SOLACES. Then off that "S" (the second one), I looked at 44D: Lavender or lilac and wrote in SHADE. Wrong-wrong combo! That's never good. I was lucky that my wrong answers absolutely ground me to a halt—wouldn't work with any crosses whatsoever—so I pulled myself out of that mess reasonably quickly, starting with the obvious SEEN (54A: How one might feel at a support group meeting), which changed SHADE to SCENT. The "T" from HASN'T eventually killed SOLACES and got me to SOOTHES, and then I was back on track. 

After fixing SOLACES / SHADE, everything went fine until the very end—the hardest part of the grid, for me—the far north. Three little answers would not allow me to move from the NW into the N. The real killer was PHDS (20A: U.S. senators Warnock and Duckworth, for two). PALS!? No idea. That "H" in PHDS stayed a mystery because ITCHED (5D: Had a hankering?)? No idea! I ITCHED for several days last week but that's because I got triple-stung by a wasp, not because I had a hankering. The fact that the clue on nearby EARS (7D: Sound wave amplifiers) was also inscrutable to me meant that I was essentially in an "Access Denied" situation vis-a-vis the NE, so I ended up having to come at it from the other side, up from below. Luckily, not that hard. Big "D'oh!" when P-DS ended up being PHDS. Tough (for me), but fair. The "U.S." in the clue does fairly signal that the answer will be an abbr. Fridays should involve at least a little struggle. Not enough struggle to make this anything but "Easy," but still, enough crunch to keep the puzzle from being boring-easy.

Bullets:

• 19A: Singer/actress Carrere (TIA) — a name I associate almost exclusively with Wayne's World (1992) but I just looked her up and she has worked constantly in both film and television for the past three decades. Plus she won two Grammys for Best Hawaiian Music Album (!!). TIA is usually clued as Spanish for "aunt," or via the coffee liqueur TIA Maria, but every five years or so, you get Ms. Carrere (her last name has also appeared in the NYTXW, three times, though her full name, never).

• 31A: Drives for money? (TELETHON) — had me wondering if there was such a thing as a GOLF(A)THON.
• 45A: Fairly low-risk investment (AA BOND) — by far my least favorite thing in the grid. Let us not speak of it again.
• 29D: Trial that an attorney may not remember fondly? (LSAT) — don't really get this. I mean, you're an attorney. It's just a reading comprehension and logic test. You must've done OK.  Isn't the bar the really grueling "trial"?
• 31D: Blue ___ (coral reef swimmers like Pixar's Dory) (TANGS) — I never knew "tang" was a fish until I started seeing TANG clued that way in puzzles (which the NYTXW didn't do until 2024!?). 
• 49A: Guard at the gates of Mordor (ORC) — ENTs are good and Mordor is bad so I went with the other three-letter creature from LOTR. A note for those who are occasionally confused: ENDOR is the forest moon where the Ewoks live (Star Wars); MORDOR is the realm of the dark lord Sauron (Lord of the Rings). Hope this helps.

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

[all proceeds go to WFMU, the best listener-supported radio in the whole dang world]

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. a little Paul Simon for you today ... just because ❤️

  

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British rowhouses / FRI 1-30-26 / Small branch of Marvel Comics? / Jalapeño topper / Call ahead, in a way / Mylar alternative / Switch to a shorter line, say / Leader of China? / Group of Alpha males? / Piedmont province with a namesake wine / Brand whose logo has an A-shaped caliper / Capture a moment, in fiction / Chaney of classic horror / Elicit the facepalm emoji, say

Constructor: Robyn Weintraub

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: MEWS (31D: British rowhouses) —

A mews is a row or courtyard of stables and carriage houses with living quarters above them, built behind large city houses before motor vehicles replaced horses in the early twentieth century. Mews are usually located in desirable residential areas, having been built to cater for the horses, coachmen and stable-servants of prosperous residents.

The word mews comes from the Royal Mews in London, England, a set of royal stables built 500 years ago on a former royal hawk mews. The term is now commonly used in English-speaking countries for city housing of a similar design. [...] Mews derives from the French muer, 'to moult', reflecting its original function to confine a hawk to a mews while it moulted. William Shakespeare deploys to mew up to mean confine, coop up, or shut up in The Taming of the Shrew: "What, will you mew her up, Signor Baptista?" and also Richard III: "This day should Clarence closely be mewed up".

The term mews is still used today in falconry circles in English-speaking countries to refer to the housing of the birds of prey used in falconry. (wikipedia)

• • •

There it is. There's the Friday puzzle I've been missing, craving, chasing. The one that explodes in bursts of whooshes and zooms but somehow also manages not to be insultingly easy. Choked with marquee answers—really worthy marquee answers. When I say "worthy," that doesn't mean they are all precisely to my tastes—I'd be happy never seeing another Marvel character in my grid again, so BABY GROOT didn't exactly thrill me (33A: Small branch of Marvel Comics?), but even as I entered it in, I thought "that's a pretty good answer for someone who likes that sort of thing" (I had "BABY" and started scrolling through the Marvel hero roster wondering which one they were babifying now: BABY SPIDER-MAN? BABY BLACK PANTHER? BABY THOR!? Then I remembered Groot—the Marvel equivalent of an ENT, i.e. a tree creature (or in the case of BABY GROOT, a little "branch" creature)—and remembered that I had, in fact, seen a BABY GROOT ... somewhere. Comics? Movies? Don't remember). As for the other long answers: yee haw. T-MINUS ZERO got me started, though clunkily, as that exact phrase somehow isn't a top-of-the-brain, rolls-off-the-tongue countdown phrase for me, but after that? The puzzle burst open: "CHECK PLEASE!" GHOST STORIES! GOES BERSERK! and on and on, spiraling through the (SPIRAL) GALAXY. Fourteen (14!) answers of 8 or more letters in length, all of them solid, many of them great. I particularly love the pairing in the SW corner: it's like the puzzle is speaking directly to me, giving advice on how to survive life in an increasingly fascist country that is dedicated to harming its own people (via secret police or infectious diseases, take your pick): "FACE REALITY!" (tough!). "REMAIN CALM!" (tougher!). Good advice! I'll try!

The difficulty for me today was entirely in the short stuff. Luckily, the short stuff is mostly not ugly stuff, so I didn't mind the fight (I do resent fighting for what is ultimately a cruddy answer). Trouble with the short stuff started early, in NW, with both RADIO (2D: Call ahead, in a way) and EDIT (17A: Switch to a shorter line, say). In neither case was I imagining the correct context. I might "call ahead," but I would never RADIO anyone, as I am not a cop checking in with headquarters (or whoever else "radios" on a regular basis. Cabbies? Military personnel?). And the clue on EDIT had me thinking of checkout lines, obviously. I forgot that [British rowhouses] were called MEWS (at M-WS I actually thought "MOWS?"). A LOT was hardish to get to via 32D: Every day, say. And it went on like this, with the clues to the answers testing me, and then the long answers thrilling me. FRAT came as a total surprise (46D: Group of Alpha males?)—is there a FRAT that's abbreviated "Alpha"? I guess the Greek letter alone was supposed to tip me. I had NOTES before TONES (57A: Steps on a scale), which kept that FRAT corner tough. Without a "?" on [Jalapeño topper], the fact that it was a "letteral" clue (referring specifically to the TILDE on the letter Ñ) never occurred to me. In that same section, I wanted SINO- before INDO- (55A: Leader of China?). As for "DEEP," no way (58A: "Whoa ... that's too much for my brain to handle!"). No hope. I don't think the clue is very good. How do I know something's "DEEP" if it's "too much for my brain to handle"? Makes no sense. If my brain can't handle it, maybe it's just "CONFUSING" or "WRONG." Or maybe it's shallow and I'm just "STUPID." Is the tone of "DEEP" facetious? Mocking? Again, without crucial context, this clue did nothing for me. But it's the only toughish clue that I ended up booing at. The rest all seemed fair and fine.

Bullets:

• 5A: Piedmont province with a namesake wine (ASTI) — "Piedmont" = "wine" = four letters = ASTI. Reflex answer.
• 24A: It's -90º at the South Pole: Abbr. (LAT.) — yes I wrote in LOW and no I will not be taking any questions at this time.
• 36A: Brand whose logo has an A-shaped caliper (ACURA) — I never really thought about that logo as looking like anything in particular, but of course it's a caliper. Maybe if I worked with calipers more often (i.e. at all), that fact would've registered.

• 39A: Mylar alternative (LATEX) — again, need context! Looks like maybe ... balloons? Probably other stuff too, but there are definitely both LATEX and mylar balloons.
• 40A: Capture a moment, in fiction (STOP TIME) — "in fiction?" You "capture a moment" by ... depicting it. That's all fiction is. I don't really know what this clue is referring to, specifically. STOP-TIME is also a term from the jazz world: "a technique or effect in which the rhythm section stops playing for one or more beats each measure, usually for a chorus, while a soloist continues to play" (Collins). It's also the name of this song.

• 6D: Eggshell, for one (SHEEN) — another short one that flummoxed me. I knew it was a COLOR or a HUE, a SHADE of, say, stocking, but SHEEN, you got me there. I guess we're talking about paint.

• 28D: Florida setting for "The Birdcage" (SOUTH BEACH) — me: "ooh, I know this." me also: [writes in SOUTH MIAMI]. 

That's all. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Malaysian state or island / FRI 5-2-25 / Bams, cracks or dots, in mahjong / Literary bird with a one-word vocabulary, apparently / Much of northern Arkansas / Sides of circles? / Titular female Disney character whose name also appears in a Shakespeare play / Sunfish feature / Lincoln Center's former ___ Fisher Hall

Constructor: Robyn Weintraub

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: PENANG (45A: Malaysian state or island) —

Penang is a Malaysian state located on the northwest coast of Peninsular Malaysia along the Strait of Malacca. It has two parts: Penang Island, where the capital city, George Town, is located, and Seberang Perai on the Malay Peninsula. These two halves are physically connected by the Penang Bridge and the Second Penang Bridge. The state shares borders with Kedah to the north and east, and Perak to the south.

Penang is one of Malaysia's most developed economic powerhouses, with the highest GDP per capita and Human Development Index of all states. It also ranks second among the states in terms of average wages. Penang is Malaysia's leading exporter with over RM447 billion (US$108.94 billion) in exports in 2023, primarily through the Penang International Airport which is also the nation's second busiest by aircraft movements. [...] 

With 1.74 million residents and a population density of 1,659/km² (4,300/sq mi) as of 2020, Penang is one of Malaysia's most densely populated and urbanised states. Seberang Perai is Malaysia's third largest city by population. Penang is culturally diverse with a population that includes Chinese, Malays, Indians, Eurasians, Siamese and expatriates. (wikipedia) 

• • •

This puzzle had many of the things I have come to expect from a Robyn Weintraub Friday puzzle, but also a couple things I have come not to expect—namely, obscure (or at least totally unknown-to-me) proper nouns. I am vaguely familiar with the existence of the musical "Hello, Dolly," but where LEVI factors in, I have no idea. Is that her last name? Dolly LEVI? Oh yeah, looks like. Dolly Gallagher LEVI. I've seen LEVI in the puzzle a million different ways, but if I ever saw it this way, I forgot it, for sure (16A: Dolly of "Hello, Dolly!"). So LEVI per se, not obscure, but as clued, yeesh. Needed most of the crosses. Then there's PENANG, which ... well, ya got me. I am familiar with PANANG curry, but I'm pretty sure that's spelled the way I just spelled it (turns out it's spelled many ways in English, but yes, PANANG is one of them, and PENANG ... isn't). I confess I know next to nothing about Malaysia. PENANG is home to the country's second-most populous city (George Town), but off the top of my head I couldn't name Malaysia's *first*-most populous city (it's Kuala Lumpur, which, unlike George Town (and PENANG), I've heard of and should've known, my bad). In the days before I started solving, the NYTXW used to be virtually awash in PENANG. It made 20 of its 24 total appearances before I was ever born, and last appeared in a grid in 1993. In fact, this is the first appearance of PENANG in the Modern (Shortz) Era. The island probably had WWII importance, which gave it some lasting post-war cultural relevance. But by the '70s its appearances waned, and even Maleska (Shortz's notoriously obscure geography-hungry predecessor) only used it twice, late in his career (side note: the last two people to use PENANG in a puzzle were named Patterson Pepple (1991) and Tap Osborn (1993), which are some great names. Annnnyway, huge "what the!?" at PENANG. And now, after a little research, I know why. Back to my initial point, or one of them: I don't normally have to hunt geographical obscurities when I'm finished solving one of Robyn's puzzles. I think the fact that PENANG is throwing me so bad today is testament to how high my expectations are for smoothness and general familiarity when it comes to Robyn's puzzles.

But as I said up top, in addition to the unexpected (namely, the proper noun mysteries), there was the very-much-expected—that is, the delightful longer colloquial phrases zinging across the grid. "THINK IT OVER," "HOW CAN I RESIST?," "YOU GET THE IDEA" ... you get the idea: all the hallmark Weintraub pizzazz and loveliness, AS EXPECTED. The grid had a light touch. It felt airy (complimentary) and breezy and I zoom-zoomed through it with (mostly) great pleasure. Again, PENANG doesn't stand out *nearly* so much if it doesn't represent a fairly bumpy departure from the creamy norm. The grid felt maybe a little heavy on the short crosswordy stuff (ARNO OLIN ERG CHE ATON IDES ILSA etc.), but never in a way that felt abusive or lazy. 

Outside of PENANG, and to a lesser extent, LEVI, I had only minor trouble today. I could not make heads or tails of the HALF clue at first (25D: One of two for one). I am doing so many cryptic crosswords these days that I just looked at the clue and started thinking about it on a very literal basis, i.e. "what does the word 'one' have two of? Uh ... vowels?" No no no. I mean, yes, it has two vowels, but no, that is not relevant here. But yes, any one thing, cut in half, has two ... halves? I guess you can't really argue with that. I also didn't find "Well, THEN ..." intuitive.  Or, I found it too intuitive—so ordinary that I couldn't believe it was being passed off as a standalone phrase. In funnier struggles, I put [Much of northern Arkansas] in the AZORES for a second or two (which is what happens when your internal Pattern Recognition Software fails at speed). I also had a ROBIN (Robyn!) as the one-word bird ("tweedly deedily dee [short birdsong], tweedly deedily dee, tweedly deedily dee, [short birdsong]" etc.) instead of Poe's RAVEN ("Nevermore!") (38A: Literary bird with a one-word vocabulary, apparently). 

Bullets:

• 17A: Sides of circles? (ONION RINGS) — never saw the clue. I solve short stuff first and then look at clues for longer answers ... but I must've had most of ONION RINGS already filled in and didn't even bother? Or maybe I did, and just saw the word "sides" and that was enough? It all happened so fast. 
• 29A: Titular female Disney character whose name also appears in a Shakespeare play (ARIEL) / 30A: Titular male Shakespeare character whose name also appears in a Disney film (TIMON) — so that's The Little Mermaid and The Tempest for ARIEL, and TIMON of Athens and The Lion King for TIMON. You know, I've never seen The Lion King. I stopped seeing that first new wave of Disney films right after Aladdin, I think. TIMON is the meerkat who is best friends with Pumbaa, the warthog.

• 36A: Sunfish feature (SAIL) — oh this was slightly toughish for me too. No idea that a sunfish was a type of sailboat. Even after I got the answer, I assumed that SAIL was just a name for the actual sunfish's rather large fin...

• 12D: Lincoln Center's former ___ Fisher Hall (AVERY) — familiarish, but ... why would you put a "former" hall in the puzzle? What happened to the hall? ... [Looks it up] ... Ah, I see. It's still there. But ... looks like the Yale School of Drama isn't the only thing David Geffen has managed to plaster his name on. 
• 24D: Concrete example of rotational forces and fluid dynamics? (CEMENT MIXER) — the five-year-old in me loves seeing a CEMENT MIXER. He doesn't so much love the clue, but vroom vroom, chug chug, spin spin, CEMENT MIXER, fun. Reminds me of reading Richard Scarry books as a kid. So many great vehicles in there...

• 46D: Super Monkey Ball brand (SEGA) — again, no idea. Way more "no idea"s than I'm used to in a Weintraub Friday, but SEGA is such a familiar game brand that I didn't get held up too much here. 
• 36D: Bams, cracks or dots, in mahjong (SUITS) — did not know this, but guessed it immediately, and thank god, or else I'd still be dealing with the sunfish's TAIL.

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Sally Bowles's flatmate in Chelsea, per a "Cabaret" number / FRI 12-06-2024 / University that awarded the first Ph.D. in the U.S. / ___ prime (focus of a computational challenge in math)

Constructor: Robyn Weintraub

Relative difficulty: Easy breezy (9:29)

Word of the Day: MADRAS (Patterned cotton fabric originally from India) —

Dutch traders arrived in India in the early 17th century to trade in the local calico cloth, followed by the British. The English East India Company sought quality textiles, finding the small fishing village of Madrasapattinam (Madras), and the company established a trading post there in the mid-17th century.

• • •

Hey folks! Malaika here, back for another write-up. I so rarely review the Friday / Saturdays that it feels weird to not have a theme to explain. Before we dive in, a huge thank you to everyone who made suggestions to the playlist I shared yesterday! I really loved reading through all of them. (Btw, I read every comment on every post that I write.... so be nice haha.) I am only adding songs once I listen to them, and I'm still working my way through, but we're already up to over a hundred!

Robyn Weintraub is kind of my hero since she writes easy Friday puzzles, which are exactly the type of puzzles that I hope I am writing. I (and others) associate her grids with conversational entries-- here we had IT TAKES TIME, as well as IS THAT A YES OR A NO and THIS IS NOT A DRILL in symmetrical spots. The latter two were probably my favorite entries in the grid, which surprised me because I usually prefer noun entries. (That's not to say I dislike conversational entries-- but I usually think the clues are a little clunky and don't have much space for word play.) Of course, I loved the nouns as well-- SPIRIT ANIMALS, SIX PACKS, MEERKATS, STING RAY, and CEDAR PLANKS. I love when a clue paints a picture in my head; I love imagining the zesty, earthy, charred smells of salmon being grilled on cedar on a sunny day.

The clues were a little more hit-or-miss for me. I took note of two whose wordplay didn't 100% land for me. [Screenwriter's way of reintroducing some characters?] was a clue for PASTE. I interpret this as how people who type on a computer (that is-- "write" on a "screen") use the copy / paste command to add symbols ("characters") to a file. I actually really liked the latter part but don't think "screenwriter" works here. Maybe if they had added a space, so it was "screen writer"?

I also didn't like [They're often lying in beds and might be kinky] for HOSES. This clue kind of had the vibe of a sixteen year old who's sooooo proud of themselves for making a sex joke but it's clear to everyone else they have no idea what they're talking about. I've never heard of hoses referred to as kinky-- just kinked. And I would never describe a kinky person (which presumably was the misdirect?) as "often lying in beds."

This is not an ad

On the other side of things were the clue for ROTARY DIAL (Turning point in telecommunications history?) which was excellent and [Contact sites] (i.e. contact lenses) for EYES-- more of a misdirect than a pun, but very clever. And I loved the TIA Maria reference. It's so delicious!

Bullets:

• [Teddy alternative] for THEO — This is referring to nicknames for "Theodore"
• [One who gets all snooty when it's time to get a cab?] for WINE SNOB — "Cab" here refers to a type of wine, like Cabernet Franc. I've seen a version of this pun so many times that it no longer hits for me, but I hope first-timers enjoyed it!
• [Issa of "American Fiction"] for RAE— I loved this movie!
• [Checker's move] for TWIST — The clue here is referring to Chubby Checker's hit, "The Twist"

xoxo Malaika

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Bose competitor / FRI 6-14-24 / Gym machine for rowing exercises, informally / Work on an intaglio / Emulates Niobe / "___ Honey," debut album for Radiohead / Some traitorous transgressions

Constructor: Robyn Weintraub

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: ETHEL Barrymore (1D: Actress Barrymore with an eponymous Broadway theater) —

[None But the Lonely Heart]

Ethel Barrymore (born Ethel Mae Blythe; August 15, 1879 – June 18, 1959) was an American actress and a member of the Barrymore family of actors. Barrymore was a stage, screen and radio actress whose career spanned six decades, and was regarded as "The First Lady of the American Theatre". She received four nominations for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, winning for None but the Lonely Heart (1944). // She was the sister of actors John and Lionel Barrymore, the aunt of actor John Drew Barrymore and great-aunt of actress Drew Barrymore. She was a granddaughter of actress and theater manager Louisa Lane Drew and niece of Broadway matinée idol John Drew, Jr. and Vitagraph Studios stage and screen star Sidney Drew. (wikipedia)

• • •

Ah, I'd forgotten what these were like (these being Robyn Weintraub puzzles). Feels like it's been a while. Has it been a while? Wow, it really has. This is the first RW puzzle of 2024, according to my own 2024 spreadsheet. Her byline was last seen Dec. 29, 2023. Anyway, in case you didn't know because you are very new to puzzles, Robyn's Friday themeless crosswords are pretty much the Gold Standard, the ones that I'm measuring all others against, and today's puzzle is a good example of why—marquee answers for days (I count 12!?), and an overall flow that makes the puzzle a delight to move through. Whoosh. That's what they have. Or Zing, if you like. The best of the marquees tend to be (as they are today) colorful colloquial phrases, figures of speech that really give the grid some life ("THAT'S THE SPOT!" "THERE'S MORE!" "DON'T REMIND ME!"). There are actually only two flat-out debut answers today ("THAT'S THE SPOT!" and INSIDE JOBS), but debuts (while nice) aren't necessarily the goal. I've seen plenty of terrible debuts, where I thought, "Yes, the world was better when we were not putting that in puzzles." The goal is a feeling of freshness and a spirit of fun and a wide and varied palette of answers, all in a cleanly filled grid. And on those counts, this puzzle delivers. It's SMART! (30A: Stylish in appearance).

The thing about smooth puzzles like this is that when I hit a bump, it really Bumps. Whether it's me or the puzzle itself that is clunking, rough spots become very memorable. Some combination of me and the puzzle clunking simultaneously made the start of this solve very awkward. I should've just written in ETHEL, because come on, what other actress besides DREW has that name, but I had already decided that an "intaglio" involved the act of TILE-ing, not ETCHing, and I had also decided that Queen Suthida Bajrasudhabimalalakshana was a RANI (crossword reflex!). I maybe should've recognized the name as THAI, but that's the problem, that, the way I used "THAI" just there—I would only ever use that word as an adjective. "She's a THAI"? I'm sure that's valid, but it is not at all intuitive to my ears. If the clue had been [Like Queen Suthida Bajrasudhabimalalakshana], RANI (a noun) would've been out, as would all nouns, and so THAI would likely have come to me sooner. This is like cluing GERMAN as [Werner Herzog, e.g.]. I want GERMAN to be an adjective, even though I know that it can be a noun. Cluing THAI as a noun, while technically legal, felt very awkward. Anyway, I'm mostly embarrassed that my first response here placed the Queen in an entirely different country. At least RANI is, in fact, the equivalent of "Queen." That makes my error slightly less mortifying. 

[my neighborhood THAI place]

Couldn't remember what "intaglio" was, couldn't identify the nationality of a queen—that pretty much gummed up the works in the NW, but I just moved over to the N where I found a NUDE, who kindly helped me get some real traction, and from that point, the Whoosh began—across the NE and then back over to the NW and then down to the SW and finally up the IRISES and over to the NATO SUMMIT, finishing up with not Kea but LOA (52D: "Mahalo nui ___" (Hawaiian for "Thank you very much")). After the TILE / RANI fiasco of the NW, only a couple of places really stood out as ugly or troublesome. I would call the sweater type a "crewneck," so 31D: Works on a crew? (DARNS) just didn't land for me. Needed every single cross. [correction: you darn socks, obviously, so this is a crew sock, which I have really Really never heard called just a “crew”]. I also have never really heard the term STEAM TABLE (except, apparently, in the NYTXW back in '09. Sounds like something you'd find at a spa. I can picture one, I guess, but maybe the buffets I've been to of late have used sterno as a heating element? Not really a buffet enthusiast, to be honest. But STEAM TABLEs are very real things—just beyond my ken (and general vocabulary). I wouldn't say ORE comes in "pockets" (29D: Things in pockets that can be picked?) (I've always been told—by the crossword!—that ORE comes in "seams"), nor would I say that a bridge "runs across" a river, say (see clue for SPANS (25A: Runs across)), but both clues are obviously trying (very hard) to misdirect you, and they're both technically valid, so OK. Not sure why there's a "?" on the ORE clue except to say "hey look at me doing some really bad 'pickpocket' wordplay." Maybe this clue just wanted to do a little "pocket" callback to the CARGO PANTS clue (3D: They have deep pockets). The misdirection on [Runs across] is more sly. That clue obviously wants you to think "Runs across" as in "Meets" or "Encounters." Mission accomplished.

Notes:

• 17A: Gather together (HERD) — an additional factor in the whole opening NW wipe-out. I wanted REAP ... maybe MASS.
• 45A: Emulates Niobe (MOURNS) — she's so strongly associated with tears that after CRIES wouldn't fit, I was out of ideas. But MOURNS, sure, that is what occasions the crying. 

["Like Niobe, all tears"]

• 49A: "Ew, ew, EW!" ("TMI!") — "Too Much Information"; a really great clue. You can really feel the "stop talking now!" energy.
• 10D: Pair making an appearance in the "Iliad"? (IOTAS)— a "letteral" clue, with the referent being the two (Greek) "I"s in the word "Iliad." ["Iliad" pair] (no question mark) would've been wickeder. 
• 13D: Best Actress nominee in 1992 who won Best Supporting Actress in 2020 (DERN) — it says something (bad? telling?) about my pop culture brain that without looking I could name the 1992 movie in question (Rambling Rose) but not the 2020 one. I thought maybe Certain Women (wrong year) or else Little Women, but she wasn't nominated for that (Ronin and Pugh were). Did you know she was also in Dr. T and the Women (2000)? This means that there is (unofficially, but now also canonically) a Laura DERN "Women" trilogy. Anyway, DERN won her Oscar for playing a divorce lawyer in Marriage Story. 

[DR. T has made 27 NYTXW appearances to date, mostly for this movie ... though occasionally also for the freaky Seussian musical fantasy, The 5000 Fingers of DR. T (1953)]

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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