Family elder in El Salvador / SUN 6-22-25 / Spread the word? / Febreze competitor / Rocker Ric / Dinosaur "from our imagination" / Jack on a nonfat diet / South Pole trailblazer Amundsen / Young pigs / Community at the end of the line

Constructor: Ruth Bloomfield Margolin and Hannah Margolin

Relative difficulty: Medium



THEME: Bringing a Plus One — Theme answers are wedding-related things with one letter added, clued wackily

Theme answers:

• S(H)AVE THE DATE (23A Make a partner's beard presentable for all the photos?)
• CASH BAR(D) (25A Poet hired to write the couple's vows in flowery verse?)
• WEDDING D(U)RESS (34A Cause of many headaches while planning the big day?)
• G(R)IFT REGISTRY (54A Tool for a couple who intend to return everything and keep the money?)
  
• F(E)ATHER OF THE BRIDE (68A Fancy headpiece garment?)
• SOMETHING (B)OLD (86A Colorful sequined jacket that the groom chose to wear?)
• PAR(I)TY PLANNER (101A One ensuring that each family can invite the same number of guests?)
• BE(A)ST MAN (115A Animal's escort down the aisle?)
• MOTHER IN LAW(N) (117A Parent who foolishly wore stiletto heels to a garden event?)

Word of the Day: HADRON (1A: [Large ___ Collider (facility in Geneva, Switzerland)]) —

In particle physics, a hadron is a composite subatomic particle made of two or more quarks held together by the strong nuclear force. Pronounced /ˈhædrɒn/ ^ⓘ, the name is derived from Ancient Greek ἁδρός (hadrós) 'stout, thick'. They are analogous to molecules, which are held together by the electric force. Most of the mass of ordinary matter comes from two hadrons: the proton and the neutron, while most of the mass of the protons and neutrons is in turn due to the binding energy of their constituent quarks, due to the strong force.

• • •

Um ... hello, again. It's Rafa here blogging the Sunday puzzle. I somehow blogged the wrong puzzle last night. I'm just a silly goose like that, I guess. But hopefully it was fun to have two different write-ups? And see how the solving experience can be very alike or very different. But today you are stuck with just me. No agreeing or dissenting opinions! Just little old me on my little computer telling all of you about this puzzle.

This puzzle was ... a puzzle, for sure. We have some wedding-related puns where we add a letter to the answer. But overall the puns felt a bit forced to me. It's certainly neat that there are enough wedding-related phrases to pull this theme off, but I was hoping for some additional twist, or for the added letters to spell some meta answer that tied everything nicely. But as it was I was mostly just ... *shrug*. When I say forced, I mean things like BEAST MAN. Like, this doesn't really feel like even a semi-realistic situation at a wedding? Whereas a MOTHER-IN-LAWN felt funnier and more realistic to me. Pun puzzles in general are very hit-or-miss based on your specific type of humor, but this one didn't totally tickle my sense of whimsy.

It's a SAGO palm

I had also never heard of SOMETHING OLD, which apparently is a rhyme for what a bride should wear to bring good luck. I think I'm excused because my wedding (though currently very far from being a thing) will not feature a bride. (Eligible gentlemen in their mid-20s to mid-30s in the Bay Area -- please inquire within if you are interested in changing this situation!) ... alright, now I've shot my shot, so let's get back into the puzzle. I don't think I have much more to say about the theme. They are puns. They are about weddings. Some people might find them funny. Oh, I didn't mention the title -- "Bringing a Plus One". It's a good title, but it doesn't quite give the puzzle enough of a raison d'être IMO. Also, why is the title for Sunday puzzles so buried in the app? (You have to click the "i" icon to see it.)

Oh, also, WEDDING DURESS. Does "duress" mean "headaches"? The dictionaries I consulted define duress as "threats, violence, constraints, or other action brought to bear on someone to do something against their will or better judgment" or "forcible restraint or restriction" ... both of which are obviously *very* bad vibes when it comes to a wedding. So, that whole entry just felt ... off. Ok, I'll stop complaining about this theme. Let's go complain about something else! (Remember when I said I had nothing left to say about the theme?)

Some MELTED cheese in fondue

The fill had its ups and downs. Some icky partials in A ROW and O WOE, and things like ORANG (nobody has ever said this) and MNO (don't feel like I need to explain why this is bad) and ONER (nobody has ever said this). I've probably already mentioned this here but I became an EELER convert after reading an article in the New Yorker last year about EELERs in Maine. So, don't come for EELER. But also some great stuff here! I enjoyed: ANGOLA, COCONUT, ABUELA, LEGALESE, ALL-SEASON, KAHLUA (a "mudslide" is a cocktail), TAX FORM, I SURE DO, SASHAY. Funny how sometimes entries that might seem "boring" like the one-word COCONUT can be evocative during a solve. Speaking of things I've read, Patrick Radden Keefe's "Rogues" has a great article about WINE FRAUD that I read a few months ago. Last year I would maybe have complained that WINE FRAUD was "not a thing" but I have been enlightened in time!

This is just my cat. She is perfect. Please say hi to her.

Alright, I think that's all from me. Hope you all stay safe and happy and healthy and all the other good things. Until next time!

Bullets:

• 10D: RATED E [Like the Mario Kart games] — the new game in the franchise (Mario Kart World) just came out on the Switch 2. I haven't had a chance to play yet, but hoping to get to it eventually.
• 4D: REVEAL [Gender ___ (prebirth event)] — this cluing angle is ... a choice
• 69D: HURON [The "H" in HOMES] — You always love to see non-Erie Great Lake representation!
• 55D: TAX FORM [1099, e.g.] — I miss the days when I knew nothing about TAX FORMs. The number 1099 was just a number like any other. (Apropos of nothing, 1099 is not prime. Its prime factors are 7 and 157, which feels ... cursed somehow?!)

Signed, Rafa

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Iconic logo in athletic apparel / WED 11-29-23 / Bette Midler's "Divine" nickname / Fast bygone jet for short / Modern term for the psychological exhaustion showcased in this puzzle's theme / Ancient readers of the Book of the Dead

Constructor: Ruth Bloomfield Margolin

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: DECISION FATIGUE (38A: Modern term for the psychological exhaustion showcased in this puzzle's theme) — phrases of indecision, clued by phrases from an imagined speaker trying to decide between "A" and "B" (and by the end, "even C") ...

Theme answers:

• ON THE FENCE (16A: Thinking A or B ... hmm ...)
• WISHY-WASHY (23A: Thinking A ... no, B ... no, A)
• OF TWO MINDS (48A: Thinking A ... but also thinking B? Gah!)
• UP IN THE AIR (60A: Thinking A ... B ... maybe even C?)

Word of the Day: Vince LOMBARDI (9D: Hall-of-Fame coach who purportedly said "Once you learn to quit, it becomes a habit") —

  

Vincent Thomas Lombardi (June 11, 1913 – September 3, 1970) was an American football coach and executive in the National Football League (NFL). Lombardi is considered by many to be the greatest coach in American football history, and he is recognized as one of the greatest coaches and leaders in the history of all American sports. He is best known as the head coach of the Green Bay Packers during the 1960s, where he led the team to three straight and five total NFL Championships in seven years, in addition to winning the first two Super Bowls at the conclusion of the 1966 and 1967 NFL seasons. (wikipedia)

• • •

I'm not really seeing the FATIGUE here. Also, I don't really know the phrase DECISION FATIGUE. Is it "modern"? It doesn't feel "modern." In fact, nothing about this puzzle feels "modern." It is decidedly (!), emphatically, unequivocally rooted in the last century, from the entire crew of proper nouns (I.M.PEI, DESI, LOMBARDI, YMA, MISS M, The Rolling Stones' YAYAS) to the quality and character of its overall fill (AER ITSY SST ASPER CRU etc.). Feels like a puzzle that was made entirely by hand—the cheater squares* (before CRU, after HIS) are otherwise totally inexplicable. This should've been easy to fill much more cleanly with software assistance, without having to resort to unnecessary black squares. Making puzzles entirely by hand is *hard* so I'm just going to assume that this one was made that way and give it a bit of a break on the fill. Still, slightly ironic that the revealer phrase is allegedly "modern" when the grid as a whole is very much ... not. (With apologies to ANN Patchett, who is, in fact, very much of this century). 

Anyway, as I said, I don't think FATIGUE is conveyed very well at all here. You've got indecision. That's what you've got. I guess if you take the themer clues as one long monologue, you could imagine that the would-be decided is "fatigued" by the end there (I know I was). But really you've just got four adjectival phrases conveying indecision, the end. I don't think WISHY-WASHY goes with the others. It's not really a this-or-that decision-related word—"feeble or insipid in quality or character; lacking strength or boldness," says Oxford Languages (aka Google). Yes, I guess lack of boldness i.e. total commitment is a kind of indecision. Ish. Sorta. But not nearly to the same degree that ON THE FENCE, OF TWO MINDS, and UP IN THE AIR are. There's nothing surprising or particularly clever going on here, thematically. Just four indecision-related phrases that fit symmetrically. The cluing is trying its darnedest to make the theme into something more ... dramatic, or cohesive, I guess, but having a generic voice go "A? B?" isn't exactly evocative of ... well, anything. 

The long Downs are rock solid, and FAT CHANCE and "I SAW THAT!" are winners under any circumstances. There wasn't much that was challenging about this puzzle *except* the clue on ECHOES (4D: REPEATS, repeats, repeats), which, in my software *and* on the NYT puzzle site, appears to have the last "repeats" in some kind of subscript. I thought for sure that there was some technical glitch in my software, so I went to the NYT puzzle site, but found basically the same thing:

Now I see that what was happening was that the font size was shrinking ... which is a cool way to convey the fading sound of an echo. The apparent subscript thing just interfered with the effect. Anyway, I had the initial "E" for that one and semi-confidently but possibly wishywashily wrote in not ECHOES but ETCETC. But after I finally got that cleaned up, the only significant hesitation I had for the rest of the solve came while trying to parse MAESTRI from the back end (57A: Super conductors?). -I, -RI, -TRI, -STRI ... still no idea. -ESTRI ... there, finally, I got it. MAESTRI. Oof. Not a great aha, this arbitrarily Italianed plural ("maestros" is totally acceptable, probably more common, and certainly less pretentious than MAESTRI in English). Wrote in "I'M LATE" before "I'M BUSY" (29A: "It's going to have to wait"). Enjoyed the serendipitous intersection of TWO (in OF TWO MINDS) and DOS (45D: Twice 32-Down (i.e. twice UNO)). That's all I've got to say about this one. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

*black squares that do not add to the overall word count, usually added to make the grid easier to fill

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Schitt's Creek matriarch / THU 9-15-22 / Clark with #1 country hit Girls Lie Too / Like the creator deity Viracocha / Number of puppeteers needed to manipulate Topo Gigio / Where $50 bills and crossing your legs may be considered bad luck

Constructor: Ruth Bloomfield Margolin

Relative difficulty: Easy to Easy-Medium

THEME: raise and lower — theme answers are words that fit the phrase "raise (a/the) ___" (top half of the grid) or "lower the ___" (bottom half of the grid); in each case, the answer extends one letter beyond the boundaries of the grid, signifying that it has been "literally" "raised" or "lowered":

Theme answers:

• (O)BJECTIONS (3D: Make one's opposition known, literally)
• (S)TINK (5D: Protest, literally)
• (M)INIMUM WAGE (99D: Alleviate income insufficiency, literally)
• (F)AMILY (11D: See children through to adulthood, literally)
• VOLUM(E) (52D: Show respect to one's neighbors late at night, literally)
• TEMPERATUR(E) (29D: De-escalate tension, literally)
• PRICE(E) (60D: Put on sale, literally)
• TOILETSEA(T) (36D: Demonstrate a bit of bathroom etiquette, literally)

Word of the Day: ATTA (28A: Flour in Indian cuisine) —

India 

: unsorted wheat flour or meal (merriam-webster)

• • •

This doesn't work the way it ought to. Which is to say the execution is inconsistent and there are structural problems and there's no final payoff. I'll cut to the chase—there are four problems: 

1. With the exception of (O)BJECTIONS, the solver has to mentally supply a definite or indefinite article to make the phrase work, i.e you "raise (O)BJECTIONS," but you "raise *a* (S)TINK" and you "raise *the* (M)INIMUM WAGE." I don't so much mind supplying the article, but whether it's no article, "a," or "the," it should be consistent across the answers, or at least ... I don't know ... have some sense of structure or pattern or something. What we have here is just haphazard.
2. We don't actually "raise" or "lower" the answers; they extend beyond the grid edges, but nothing moves. That is, (O)BJECTIONS is sitting flush with EGGO and POOH. The answer itself has not been "raised"; I thought that first themer was "BJECTIONO" at first, because then the whole "raising" thing would at least make a little sense (answer "raised," letter "O" falls to the bottom). But that was not to be.
3. The missing letters are, as far as I can see, completely unchecked. This is uncrosswords and semi-unsporting, though none of the letters is particularly hard to suss out (I had the most trouble with -TINK because I couldn't remember the ultra-crosswordesey TERRI's first letter ("KERRI?"). All letters are supposed to have two ways that you can come at them. Not true here, which leads me to my final bjection and greatest disappointment...
4. The "raised" / "lowered" letters, in the aggregate, don't do anything. I thought, "well, surely they're going to spell out some message, some phrase, something purposeful and meaningful ... something!" But no. OSMFEEET would make a good name for a space alien, but I don't think it amounts to much here. Huge, huge letdown. 

Add to all that the weakish-creakish fill, which you can see for yourself, everywhere. I was tolerating it OK until I hit -EAL, which was a real last straw (64D: Ending with arbor). ATTA has a funny history in the NYTXW (28A: Flour in Indian cuisine). Hard for me not to see it as crosswordese, but I'm happy the puzzle seems to have discovered its Indian-cuisine meaning in the past couple years (much better than ["___ boy!"] or [Kofi Annan's middle name] or (in the olden olden days) [Leaf-cutting ant]). What's curious is that it would be more accurate to say that the NYTXW has re-discovered the Indian cuisine meaning. That clue got used a bunch by Farrar and Weng and even a few times by Maleska, but when Shortz arrived it disappeared completely. It was last seen in 1989 (!!!) before reappearing in March of 2021 and then again in July 2022. And now here it is again. All hail the dawn of a new age of ATTA!

Didn't appreciate how the Topo Gigio clue got an Italian answer (TRE) but the "La Bohème" answer got an English one (ARIA). I really wanted 46D: One of five in "La Bohème" to be ... whatever the Italian is for "ACTS" (ACTE?), solely because I was forced to go Italian for the answer to the Topo Gigio clue (47A: Number of puppeteers needed to manipulate Topo Gigio). Boo. (And if you don't know what the heck "Topo Gigio" is, you won't be alone—if you're American, you have to have had cultural awareness of the "Ed Sullivan Show" for that name to ring a bell). I thought upholstery was maybe WELDED, so that was weird (35A: Like some upholstery). And I was leafing through a British dictionary the other day (long story...) and saw AGGRO, and so when 13D: More than miffed came along today, and I had the -GR- ... well, in it went. No other real struggles with the fill today. "SO LAST YEAR" and "NO SWIMMING" were fine, fun answers, and I like the symmetrical yin/yang thing that GOOD NEWS & NEGATIVE have going on. But the theme just didn't hum the way I wanted it to hum. ALAS. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Sweet Italian wine / TUE 8-17-21 / Ruined as a martini per 007 / Inits in 1955 union merger / Japanese speaker brand

Constructor: Ruth Bloomfield Margolin

Relative difficulty: Medium (normal Tuesday, w/ a SW corner that was maybe a *little* tougher than normal)

THEME: Dip it! Dip it good! — Down answers fittingly "dipped" in (i.e. crossing) Across answers:

Theme answers:

• Dip a NIB (15-Down) in INDIA INK (17A: You might dip a 15-Down in this before writing something) (not sure this clue needs "something")
• Dip a TOE (25-Down) in the SWIMMING POOL (26A: You might dip a 25-Down in this to test the water)
• Dip BREAD (37-Down) in the CHEESE FONDUE (44A: You might dip 37-Down in this at a dinner party)
• And dip a WICK (55-Down) in PARAFFIN (59A: You might dip a 55-Down in this to make a candle)

Word of the Day: MARSALA (46A: Sweet Italian wine) —

Marsala is a fortified wine, dry or sweet, produced in the region surrounding the Italian city of Marsala in Sicily. Marsala first received Denominazione di Origine Controllata (DOC) status in 1969. The European Union grants Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) status to Marsala, and most other countries limit the use of the term Marsala to products from the Marsala area.

While unfortified wine is also produced in the Marsala region, it does not qualify for the Marsala DOC. // Marsala fortified wine was probably first popularized outside Sicily by the English trader John Woodhouse. In 1773, he landed at the port of Marsala and discovered the local wine produced in the region, which was aged in wooden casks and tasted similar to Spanish and Portuguese fortified wines then popular in England. Fortified Marsala was, and is, made using a process called in perpetuum, which is similar to the solera system used to produce Sherry in Jerez, Spain.

Woodhouse recognized that the in perpetuum process raised the alcohol level and alcoholic taste of this wine while also preserving these characteristics during long-distance sea travel. Woodhouse further believed that fortified Marsala would be popular in England. Marsala indeed proved so successful that Woodhouse returned to Sicily and, in 1796, began its mass production and commercialization. In 1806, it was Benjamin Ingham (1784–1861), arriving in Sicily from Leeds, who opened new markets for Marsala in Europe and the Americas. Founded by Benjamin Ingham and later run by Joseph Whitaker and William Ingham Whitaker. Joseph and his brother William Ingham Whitaker inherited vast vineyards and his great grandfather Ingham's banking empire. // In 1833, the entrepreneur Vincenzo Florio, a Calabrese by birth and Palermitano by adoption, bought up great swathes of land between the two largest established Marsala producers and set to making his own vintage with even more exclusive range of grape.

Florio purchased Woodhouse's firm, among others, in the late nineteenth century and consolidated the Marsala wine industry. Florio and Pellegrino remain the leading producers of Marsala today.

• • •

Well first off this is a very good theme. Simple, clever, clear, elegant—just what a Tuesday theme should be but rarely is. There's not much to it, but it makes perfect visual sense, and every set of crosses today is apt, not strained. The only dipping instrument I had some trouble coming up with was BREAD (haven't had cheese fondue that much since that dinner party my mom took us to in 1979 where we drove home in the thickest, most terrifying fog I've ever been in, so I was looking for the implement (the PRONG? the SPEAR? the ... SKEWR?) and forgot entirely about the food that was impaled on the implement. But yes, you dip BREAD in the cheese, you dip a TOE in the pool, you dip a NIB in ink (still hate the word "NIB," just creeps me out, but it's appropriate here), and you dip a WICK in PARAFFIN. Having crosses be built into the theme can really put a strain on surrounding fill (the more fixed answers there are, the tougher it usually is to build the grid around them), and you can feel the strain at times (especially in the SW, which should probably be torn out entirely and redone, as everything east of and including ASA is pretty weak), but basically it holds up. The core concept is so well thought out and executed, that the fill just has to stay on its feet for the puzzle to work. And it does.

That SW corner was something of a bear. Anomalous in its difficulty today, particularly in its inclusion of not one not two but three answers that seem to fall on the less-generally-known end of the answer spectrum, for a Tuesday. For me, the issue was MOVADO (never heard of it ... or, heard of it, but never cared to differentiate it from all the other random "luxury watches" that magazines seem so full of ads for) and MARSALA (which I know as a chicken, not a wine). I am intrigued by MARSALA now, as I like sherry (just bought an oloroso yesterday up in Ithaca), and apparently MARSALA shares many of the same characteristics. I'll ask my friend (and wine aficionado, and former barback) Lena about this. Anyway, I wanted something like MASSALA (???) here, which, in its one-S form, is a spice blend common in South Asian cooking. What I really wanted here was MOSELLE, which is a wine with many of the same letters as MARSALA that also fit in the allotted space. But MOSELLE is French / German / Luxembourguelese (is that the adj. for them?) and also not sweet, thus wrong for this clue. So those two technically specific M-words made the SW corner tough for me. And if it was tough for me, I can't imagine how tough it was for someone who didn't know PHAEDRA, which crosses both M-words and also seems pretty recherché for a Tuesday. My sincere condolences to anyone who foundered in the MARSALA-MOVADO-PHAEDRA Triangle today.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Struck old-style / SUN 8-9-20 / Ferris Bueller's girlfriend / First Alaskan on major U.S. party ticket / Where to get mullet trimmed / Painter of four freedoms series 1943 / Bygone apple messaging app / Hogwarts professor who was secretly a werewolf

Constructor: Ruth Bloomfield Margolin

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (a shade under 10 min.)

THEME: "Craft Show" — you draw on your puzzle at the end and make a kind of boat. The revealer and its clue explain: 66A: In perfect order ... or, as two words, what's formed by applying the answers for the five starred clues to the circled letters (SHIPSHAPE) (so ... you make a ship shape ... based on the shapes described in the ...

Theme answers:

• LOVE TRIANGLE (36D: *Rick, Ilsa and Victor had one in "Casablanca")
• SECURITY LINE (35D: *Airport logjam)
• STORY ARC (84A: *Multi-episode narrative)
• TOWN SQUARE (113A: *Civic center)
• SKI SLOPE (48A: *Winter vacation destination)

Word of the Day: ST. PIERRE (53D: French island off the coast of Newfoundland) —

Saint Pierre and Miquelon, officially the Overseas Collectivity of Saint Pierre and Miquelon (French: Collectivité d'outre-mer de Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, IPA: [sɛ̃.pjɛʁ.e.mi.klɔ̃]), is a self-governing territorial overseas collectivity of France, situated in the northwestern Atlantic Ocean near the Canadian province of  Newfoundland and Labrador. It is the only part of New France that remains under French control, with an area of 242 square kilometres (93 sq mi) and a population of 6,008 [ed: !!!?!?!?] at the March 2016 census.

The islands are situated in the Gulf of St. Lawrence near the entrance of Fortune Bay, which extends into the southwestern coast of Newfoundland, near the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. They are 25 kilometres (16 mi) from the Burin Peninsula of Newfoundland and 3,819 kilometres (2,373 mi) from Brest, the nearest city in Metropolitan France. (wikipedia)

• • •

Whole lotta mixed feelings about this one. Nice to (finally) see a solo female constructor after more than two weeks without one. And this is conceptually ... well, interesting, at least. You draw a ship on the finished puzzle, and I can tell you I have *definitely* been asked to do that with a Sunday puzzle before (I feel like it was a puzzle about a painting that had been hung "upside-down" in some gallery for a long time and nobody noticed? Does that sound familiar? I may be conflating that puzzle with an entirely different draw-a-ship puzzle—I've been doing this for almost fourteen years ... there've been a lot of puzzles). But you build the puzzles out of shapes, and the themers describe both the shape and the letters you need to connect to make that shape: that is definitely clever. Whether I enjoyed the solving and (esp) the drawing, that's another question, and the answer to that question is an extremely equivocal, "I've definitely had worse times on a Sunday than I had today." The grid has a slightly oldish feel and the fill creaks a bit in places. And yet, honestly, it was probably smoother and more solid than most of the Sunday puzzles of late. The SW corner gets very very rough, but that's also the most thematically dense portion of the grid, with a whole bunch of circled squares crammed into a very tight area, so the roughness is at least explainable. I have never enjoyed puzzles that asked me to treat the finished grid like a child's placemat at IHOP, connecting dots and drawing pictures and what not, but if that sort of thing is your sort of thing, I don't know how you dislike this puzzle. It's ambitious and interesting. It's not for *me*, but it's not bad.

The main issue for me, from a satisfaction standpoint, is that I literally have no idea what two of these ship shapes do. Is the TOWN SQUARE some kind of ... tiller, is it? (nope, it's the rudder ... to my very very small credit, the tiller does control the rudder). And the SKI SLOPE is like ... some kind of narwhal unicorn dealie? Ooh, a bowsprit, is it a bowsprit!? [checks internet] Hoooooooly ****, it is! Ha ha, I'm nautical now, mateys!

It's weird how I know things that I don't know I know. 

I had lots of trouble in precisely two sections of this grid: the aforementioned SW (with its NWT and OHI and TNOTE and plural ANTICS with a singular-looking clue) and then the NW, which was where I started, to very little avail. I had AROAR and ERS and that is it. The clue on NOODLE was completely inscrutable to me, to the bitter end, and ADDL had me ... that's right, addled. I figured [Not incl.] was EXCL. though I also figured that was far too stupid to be plausible. I imagined the coast after a storm would be strewn with driftwood and other detritus, not ERODED. I just whiffed the whole thing and had to back into it later, and even then, that NOODLE answer had me sweating til the very last letter. Other parts of the grid caused pain (SMIT!? LOL wha?) but not the kind associated with real difficulty. I had TIMESUCK before TIMESINK (52D: Endless YouTube viewing, e.g.), SCANTY before SKIMPY (63A: Meager), MOSTLY before MAINLY (119A: By and large), and could not process the silverback gorilla clue at all ("why ... is the answer ALOHA?). That's it, that's the whole experience.

Your final reminder: Lollapuzzoola is one of the best crossword tournaments in the country, is entirely online this year, and it takes place THIS SATURDAY (Aug. 15) from 1pm-7pm. There are lots of different ways to compete, or just get the puzzles and solve in a leisurely fashion at home. All the details are here. Highly recommended.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Sainted 11th-century pope / THU 3-12-20 / Shortening in coffee order / One of only remaining people's republics

Constructor: Ruth Bloomfield Margolin

Relative difficulty: Easy (4 flat, w/o really trying)

THEME: a SIX-WORD short story attributed to ERNEST HEMINGWAY: "FOR SALE: / BABY SHOES / NEVER WORN"

Word of the Day: [this whole theme]  —

"For sale: baby shoes, never worn." is the entirety of what has been described as a six-word story, making it an extreme example of what is called flash fiction or sudden fiction. Although it is often attributed to Ernest Hemingway, the link to him is unsubstantiated and similar stories predate him  (wikipedia) (emph. mine).

• • •

Why? So much Why? Why is this exceedingly non-Thursday quote theme running on Thursday, which is supposed to be the day for tricky and clever puzzles, innovative themes, nuttiness. Where is my nuttiness!? And why is a quote this simple and (overly) familiar running at all? Why is SIX-WORD (!?!) considered a valid revealer? Why is ERNEST HEMINGWAY clued as the "author" of the quote when there is in fact no concrete evidence of that? And above all, why oh why would you run a puzzle about a dead baby, particularly in the hot middle of a pandemic?! Weak theme, weak revealer, fake quote, tone-deaf timing. Did I miss anything? The fill is pretty crusty and olde-tymey, but only LEOIX (?) seemed particularly horrible. Otherwise it was just NYT-average, i.e. routine blah.


Got CANASTA right away (1A: Card game with melds) and just blazed down and through the center of the grid down to the far SE corner. Eventually hit a handful of trouble spots, none of them major. The worst of these was 24D: Cat hate (BATH). I could not understand the clue. I still can barely understand the clue. I guess that phrasing is supposed to mean "a thing a cat ... hates," but it sounds like the clue wants a word for "hatred *of* cats" ... it's just a terribly worded clue. I had -ATH and still no idea. Clue on ABO was also awkward (2D: ___ group (hospital classification)). Not having "blood" annnywhere in that clue is just bizarre. It's a blood typing system. That's what it is. It's like the editor knew this puzzle was way way way too easy and so instead of making hard-clever clues, instead made bizarrely worded clues. Not clever, not fun. I also had trouble with "IT'D" (32A: "___ better be good!"). The only word I want in that slot is "THIS." I wrote in GRIT before GUTS (20A: Fortitude) and SPIT OUT (!?) before SPILLED (8A: Divulged). Was not really sure about MIDI, but all the crosses checked out (I assumed that last "I" cross was LEOIX and not, say, LEOXX). Not much joy today. I wanted something much more fun and light-hearted on this otherwise depressing and chaotic day. I hope you all are following best practices during this pandemic. My university is requiring that all courses be taught exclusively online for the rest of the semester. It's gonna be a weird, lonely couple of months. But shuttings  down is the right call. Gotta slow this thing down. Please don't hoard and panic and conspiracy theorize. Please do look out for the vulnerable. Wash your hands thoroughly and often, for others if not for yourself. I appreciate you all.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Title role in Christmas opera / SUN 5-26-19 / Coat-of-arms border / Shaw of 1930s-40s swing / Famous Musketeer / Nickname of 2010s pop idol / Interviewer who asked Buzz Aldrin whether people on the moon were friendly / Big-spending demographic group / Cherry Orchard daughter / Katniss' partner in Hunger Games

Constructor: Ruth Bloomfield Margolin

Relative difficulty: Medium (10:26)

THEME: "Buzz Cut" — I don't really understand the title, but the theme premise is that voiced "S" (i.e. "Z") sounds at the ends of phrases (most of them plurals) are rewritten as if they are just the regular hissing "S" sounds, which entails all new words and spellings and, if you're lucky, wackiness and hilarity:

Theme answers:

• JURY OF YOUR PIERCE (23A: Facebook friends weighing in on the new belly button ring?)
• TWO-PIECE IN A POD (44A: L'eggs brand bikini?) (LOL this is gonna need so much explanation to someone who has no idea what the L'eggs egg is, i.e. most people under 40???) ("Though the L'eggs egg became integral to the brand and their marketing and advertising, in 1991 Hanes ceased packaging the hosiery in the hard plastic containers, as the plastic eggs were seen as an example of wastefulness."—wikipedia) (looks like they brought the eggs back for a limited time in 2014 as part of some promotion)
• HISS AND HEARSE (70A: Final scene of "Antony and Cleopatra"?) (there was a "hearse" in that play?)
• DOWN ON ALL FORCE (96A: Like a confirmed peacenik?)
• CAN'T BELIEVE MY ICE (120A: "Our driveway has been incredibly slippery since the storm!"?) (this phrase is very weird without the subject, "I")
• TELL ME NO LICE (16D: Parent's fervent prayer to the school nurse?)
• WARM AND FUSSY (64D: Like a sick baby?)

Word of the Day: MASER (60D: Atomic clock timekeeper) —

noun

1. a device using the stimulated emission of radiation by excited atoms to amplify or generate coherent monochromatic electromagnetic radiation in the microwave range. (google)

• • •

ILRE *and* ORLE in the same damn grid? To say nothing of all the other klassic krosswordese in this thing: MASSIF, NEY, AMAHL, ALIG, ARTIE, ANYA, TENTER (?), TEENER ... I mean, there's the tell: if you think TEENER is a word, then your frame of reference is a good half-century out of date. Also, if you think L'eggs still come in a plastic egg (i.e. "pod"), which hasn't been true for 28 years, this puzzle will be right up your alley. Otherwise, yikes. There are some more modern things here (E-SPORTS, The BIEB) but mostly this puzzle was *aggressively* dated. Again, we aren't talking about some stray answers—we're talking about a strong, persistent, overall vibe. This puzzle is only for people who have been doing puzzles forever, and particularly for those who cut their teeth in a much earlier, much stodgier era. This puzzle might have been fine in the '80s, but today it feels exclusionary. Only for the cognoscenti, the longtime, inveterate solvers, the Maleskavites among us. I myself am a former Maleskavite. I left the Party after Maleska's death and, after a brief flirtation w/ Shortzianism in the late '90s / early '00s, found myself firmly in the neo-Tausigian camp (if you don't know what that means, then you don't subscribe to the American Values Club Crossword (AVCX), and, honestly, why is that? You should change that.). Seriously, though, ILRE is the worst thing I've ever seen in a grid, ever (well, worst thing that wasn't absolute sexist / racist garbage). And crossing ADLER and a weirdly "?"-clued REHAB, oof and woof and ouch. My printed-out grid is just a lot of angry ink in that section.


It's a piercing, not a PIERCE, so that first themer is rough, but I do like the effort. It's really trying to be clever and current. I actually don't mind the theme that much. I didn't really grok the premise very clearly as I was solving, but in retrospect, it's executed pretty cleanly and consistently, and the resulting themers aren't totally unfunny, as change-a-sound puns often are (that is ... they are, often, unfunny ... and here they aren't ... that is, they are ... funny). I made pretty good time, but then I know ORLE, which will not be true of most solvers. Well, of most younger / newer solvers. Can't much more obscure than heraldic terminology. What's next, GULES? (no, seriously, that's a thing—trust me, I'm a medievalist!). Weirdly, the very very hardest part of the grid for me, the very last part I finished, was the section in and around MASSIF. Biggest problem (besides not really knowing MASSIF) was that I could not, for the life of me, parse "I MIGHT" (45D: "It depends on my schedule"). That stuff about a "schedule" had me thinking the answer would be some much more specific phrase, and when I got "IM-" I thought it was "I'M... something." Didn't trust RIBMEAT, didn't trust GRANNIE (-IE??? not -Y?), and didn't even get HISS AND HEARSE at all. HISS part was all screwed up because of the MASSIF section, and the HEARSE part was all screwed up because what in the world is MASER?!?!?!? (60D: Atomic clock timekeeper). Apparently this is the fourth time it's been in a puzzle in the Rex Parker era (i.e. since '06), and somehow I've never bothered to look it up. So now it's my Word of the Day. You're welcome.


Someone should now do an inversion of this theme, with answers like BRUISE LEE (see 112A: Actor with a famous side kick). What does "Buzz Cut" mean? Nothing is "cut." There's no such thing as a "bus cut." I'm so lost. Oh well, it's not the first time. Hope you enjoyed this more than I did.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Sporty Spiders, informally / THU 12-20-2018 / Declaration concerning British geography? / Mr. Potato Head part / E-tail icons

Constructor: Ruth Bloomfield Margolin

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: NO NO — Themers become common sayings when the word "NO" is added in front

Theme answers:

• (NO) TWO WAYS ABOUT IT (20A: Choice of routes?)
• (NO) SKIN OFF MY BACK (24A: Result of some sunburn I had?)
• (NO) MAN IS AN ISLAND (44A: Declaration concerning British geography?)
• (NO) LAUGHING MATTER (51A: Nitrous oxide?)

Word of the Day: SKI BIB (9D: Certain attire when hitting the slopes) —

... snowveralls?

• • •

Happy December, CrossWorld! Matthew the radio nerd back in for Rex today. This puzzle felt all over the place for me (hence the slower-than-average time), and I'll start with a bit of good. For starters, I think the theme works pretty nicely, even as the second Thursday in a row to break the "three-words-or-longer-only" rule. I ~love~ the bottom two themers, especially MAN IS AN ISLAND — I really can't explain why I found it so funny. TWO WAYS ABOUT IT is nice, too. Which brings us to ... the middle of the grid ... where it feels like everything is — somewhat flippantly — about pain and suffering?

You have SKIN OFF MY BACK (which I have never heard before) crossing the rosily-clued FLAYS (was expecting something more Ramsay Bolton-esque here) crossing the somewhat-aloofly-clued MYANMAR (see also: Myanmar) crossing the painfully-ignorantly-clued YEMEN (see also: Yemen) ... but hey, at least there's the ever-ugly YSER ever-more-ugly Comic SANS to cheer you up!

This whole stretch left a really sour taste in my mouth. While I do believe that crosswords can and should serve as a leisurely escape from the drudgery of our lives, I also believe that puzzlers have the obligation to educate when the situation presents itself. Cluing MYANMAR — the country that has denied citizenship to Rohingya and persecuted Rohingya to egregious extremes for over 30 years — as "Home to the Rohingya" feels a bit disingenuous. And cluing YEMEN as anything other than a reference to what's going on in 2018 feels wrong as well. 

As an aspiring constructor, I sincerely admire the amount of work that goes into these puzzles. But this felt like it could have been better. Happy holidays, y'all.

Bullets:

• PARTAKE (11D: Not teetotal, say) — Let's please get teetotal as a crossword answer!
• RACEDAY (43D: Time for a mint julep in Louisville) — One of my former roommates is a Louisville native, and I couldn't be more excited to visit and check the Kentucky Derby off my sports bucket list someday.
• LARGEST (41D: Like the outer matryoshka doll) — Gold star for this clue for making a very commonplace word into an interesting piece of a puzzle.
• SKI BIB (9D: Certain attire when hitting the slopes) — I'm from Texas ... this is a thing?!

Signed, Matthew Stock, CrossWorld Elf in for Rex
[Follow me on Twitter here!]
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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