"Kids these days..." speakers / SAT 4-25-26 / Showy insect with dark eyespots on its wings / War of 1812 treaty locale / Start of an old request for advice / Often-regretted behavior on social media, once / Creature of the internet / Give designs to Image editor, informally? / Suffix akin to -ess / "West Side Story" song that precedes the rumble / Big acronym in purifying filters / When a sports equinox typically occurs / Consumed, quaintly / Spider-Man foe with metal "tentacles," familiarly

Constructor: Sam Ezersky

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

[17A: "The Rise of Skywalker" role]

THEME: none [people are telling me the grid is supposed to represent an IO MOTH. Hmm … if you squint and wish real hard … maybe!]

Word of the Day: Ask Ann Landers (14A: Start of an old request for advice = "DEAR ANN...") —

Ann Landers was a pen name created by Chicago Sun-Times advice columnist Ruth Crowley in 1943 and taken over by Esther Pauline "Eppie" Lederer in 1955. For 56 years, the Ask Ann Landers syndicated advice column was a regular feature in many newspapers across North America. Owing to this popularity, "Ann Landers", though fictional, is now considered a national institution and cultural icon. [...] In 1995, Lederer commented thus in The New Yorker about Pope John Paul II: "He has a sweet sense of humor. Of course, he's a Polack. They're very anti-women." Polish Americans responded with outrage. She issued a formal apology, but refused to comment further. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel canceled her column after that incident. In the same article she noted that President John F. Kennedy's father, Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., was anti-Semitic. [...] A 1995 "Ann Landers" column said, "In recent years, there have been reports of people with twisted minds putting razor blades and poison in taffy apples and Halloween candy. It is no longer safe to let your child eat treats that come from strangers." The vague warning was criticized for causing fear dishonestly, as there have been no documented cases of children receiving poisoned candy during door-to-door Halloween trick-or-treating. (wikipedia)

• • •

Gonna have to be a short one today, as, for the first time in ... yeah, I don't know how long ... I overslept! I didn't just hit Snooze, I turned the alarm off, and next thing I know, it's half an hour later. The cats usually walk all over me once that alarm goes off, but today they absolutely fell down on the job. The one day I needed them to be super-annoying and they were nowhere to be found. Of course as soon as I got up, they were like "WE'RE STARVING WHERE WERE YOU." Crying, ramming my shins. "Earn your keep, you little jerks!" ANYWAY ... where was I? Oh, this puzzle. Short write-up. Here we go. So ... I kinda liked this. First of all, I appreciate the weird grid shape, with its top-bottom mirror symmetry. Looks like some kind of spaceship, and it created a ... let's say, interesting flow. My first impressions weren't great, as I didn't think much of the longer answers on the west side. We speak of generations, plural, now, so the idea of one OLDER GENERATION feels odd and antiquated, and ugh to the sterile businessy MIDYEAR FEEDBACK (is that really a phrase that gets used?). But once I got into the meat of the middle of this puzzle, things improved dramatically. That phalanx of longer answers—the stack of three going across and the three cutting through it from above—are all winners. Solid, colorful, varied, modern. The grid is really clean, for the most part (ERES and ENNE and possibly VIS excepted). This was a fun time. Felt more like a Friday than a Saturday, but that's probably just because it had some of that Friday whoosh and zoom and less of that Saturday grind.

[21A: "___ Mia" (2014 Latin pop hit)]

What was hard? Well, the damn Star Wars answer, for one. I hate how one tiny little mistake can create total chaos, but today, REY is at a chokepoint, right at the point where it was in the position to help me get both of those long Downs, and so it was briefly but palpably disastrous when I wrote in REN instead. Kylo REN is someone, right? Someone in The Rise of Skywalker??? Yes! Gah! Pfft. OK, I feel slightly less bad. Still, that was annoying. Once I (finally) changed it to REY, I saw the MIDYEAR part of MIDYEAR FEEDBACK and worked things out from there. Before that I was like "MIDN- ... do they give MIDNIGHT evaluations now? Seems ... intimate." After that, I tore my hair out trying to think of a "word' that wasn't "tête" that could go on either side of "à" (28D: Word on either side of "à"). Even after I got the central "I." I ran the alphabet, gave up before I got to the end (d'oh!), and so had to wait for SEEING EYE DOG to give me the "S" that made me see "VIS." Stupid brain, not retrieving basic information for me like it's supposed to! Once that center stack went in, I had no further problems with this one, though finishing up in the NE was slightly slow going, as "DEAR ANN..." and PR AGENCY were both a bit difficult to parse given their less-than-obvious clues. I actually thought the "Image" in 16A: Image editor, informally? was the name of a magazine, and that that was why there was a "?" on the end of the clue. And then of course PRAGENCY looks nuts to begin with if you don't know that "PR" is an abbr. It's like someone misspelled "pregnancy." "DEAR ANN, what should I do about my unplanned PRAGENCY?"

Bullets:

• 1A: Showy insect with dark eyespots on its wings (IO MOTH) — almost high-fived myself when I got this one immediately. First thing in the grid. Pretty sure crosswords taught me what the hell an IO MOTH was in the first place.
• 27A: Get one over on (BOGEY) — oof, golf. This one got me. Thought the clue meant "get one over on" in the sense of "trick" or "fool."
• 32A: Helpful pointer, say? (SEEING-EYE DOG) — I have never seen a pointer used as a SEEING-EYE DOG. Mostly just labs and German shepherds. But "pointer" may be being used here simply to indicate that the dog "points" its human being in the right direction. I helped a man with a SEEING-EYE DOG find the car he was waiting for last weekend when I was in Manhattan. It took all my strength not to talk to his dog and pet him and ask him if he's a good boy, but I managed!

• 35A: War of 1812 treaty locale (GHENT) — Ha, I can't believe that my recent confession about confusing the Treaty of GHENT with the Council of TRENT actually paid off! Off the "G," woo hoo!
• 8D: "As men in ___ strike those that wish them best": Iago ("RAGE") — fill-in-the-blanks are always hard, and usually mildly disappointing. My disappointment today mainly stems from the fact that the puzzle's got RAGE and IRE right next to each other and ... nothing? No cross-referencing, no interaction between those two clues at all. Like, they're just gonna pretend they don't know each other? Awkward. 
• 14D: Often-regretted behavior on social media, once (DRUNK TWEETING) — lol "once." Come on. It's still "tweeting," even if the app isn't called Twitter any more. If not, then what is it? Xing??? Boo. I use BlueSky exclusively, and I still call it "tweeting." They want me to call it "skeeting," but I'd like to retain some modicum of dignity and self-respect into my old age, thanks.
  
• 19D: Be validated for vocalizing one's opinion (FEEL HEARD) — Thursday we felt seen, today we FEEL HEARD. It's a real validation-fest up in here lately.
• 37D: Creature of the internet (NEOPET) — virtual pets that I haven't thought about since my daughter was little. Apparently still a thing.
• 22D: Give designs to (STYLIZE) — I had so much trouble trying to understand what the puzzle meant by [Give designs to]. I kept imagining Greg trying to deliver Mike's architectural designs to the printer. Don't get distracted, Greg! Remember, the shortest distance between two points is ...

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

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Fashion designer Lange / THU 12-25-25 / Transcript ruiners / Old dagger carried by Scottish Highlanders / Right-eous path? / Footwear for a bride, perhaps / Vodka-and-pineapple juice cocktail popularized on "Sex and the City" / Letter after three consecutive rhyming letters / Ballon ___ (soccer star's award) / "___ the Limit" (posthumous hit for the Notorious B.I.G.)

Constructor: Sam Ezersky

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: "... LAUGHING all the way!" (51A: What's seen "all the way" through this puzzle?) — the puzzle depicts the first verse of "Jingle Bells," with lyrics appearing in a series of fill-in-the-blank clues; the final part of the verse, "... LAUGHING all the way!" is depicted visually in the grid by a series of laugh sounds found in circled squares embedded inside longer Across answers—the "laughs" stretch "all the way" from the NW to the SE corner of the grid:

The lyrics!:

• Dashing through the SNOW ... (4A)
• In a ONE-HORSE open sleigh ... (21A)
• O'er the fields WE GO ... (7D)
• LAUGHING all the way (51A)

The laughs!:

• LOLLYGAG (16A: Dawdle)
• BY THE HORNS (26A: One way to take a bull)
• RICHARD HARRIS (35A: First portrayer of Albus Dumbledore, the final live-action role in his long film career)
• WHITE HEELS (42A: Footwear for a bride, perhaps)
• BROUHAHA (57A: Ado)

Word of the Day: LIZ Lange (61A: Fashion designer Lange) — 

Liz Lange is an American fashion designer and businessperson. She is the creative director and CEO of Figue, and the founder of Liz Lange Maternity, which introduced form-fitting designer pregnancy wear in 1998. Lange has been called a pioneer in the apparel industry. // Lange has two children, Gus and Alice, and lives in Manhattan and in East Hampton, at the Grey Gardens estate. The setting of the 1975 documentary Grey Gardens, it was purchased by Lange in 2017.

She is the niece of businessman Saul Steinberg. (wikipedia)

• • •

This is an A+ theme concept. The theme execution, as well as the fill, kept trying to dampen my good time, but it's Christmas, goddammit! I choose joy! I choose to focus on that one moment when the puzzle's predicted "AHA" response (1A: Response to discovering the theme of a crossword) actually came true! I had drifted across the top of the grid ... noticed the first laugh syllable ... noticed the second "Jingle Bells" lyric ... and then while filling out the NE corner, it suddenly hit me, and I said, out loud, to no one, "Oh! LAUGHING all the way!" It happened here, just as I filled in UTILE (thus distracting me from the ugliness that is UTILE):

I knew right then the puzzle was going to "laugh" all the way across the grid, and if I'd stopped right there, right at the moment of true theme revelation, I think I would've told you "this is the best puzzle I've solved in many months." To have the puzzle literally sing the song, and then to drop little laughs in there like breadcrumbs ... all the way across the grid ... it's ingenious. It's also dense as hell—between the lyric answers and the laugh answers, there are nine themers, with density reaching really intense levels in the upper part of the grid (where SNOW crosses WE GO crosses LOLLYGAG abuts ONE-HORSE. Almost every Down up there has to cross two themers. SUPERSTATE has to cross three (3). HEADWRITER has to cross four (4!). That is nuts. Themers are fixed answers. Once you set them, they don't move, and the denser they are, the harder it is to build a clean grid around them, which may be why it feels kinda janky here and there. 

First of all, some of the theme answers are not, let's say, the strongest as stand-alone answers go. BY THE HORNS is slightly awkward, as are most prepositional phrases. WHITE HEELS are, I'm sure, a thing, but ... I dunno, felt pretty improvised, as puzzle answers go (WHITE HEELS, unshockingly, is a debut). But my biggest problem with the theme execution was the placement of "WE GO"—it's both misoriented and out of order. The first part of the lyric is up top, then the next part. is a few lines down ... so the next part should keep this pattern going—"WE GO" should appear as an Across answer (like the other lyric answers) somewhere between ONE-HORSE and LAUGHING. You have laughs drifting down the grid, you should have the song drifting down the grid—and you mostly do! It's just this one silly Down answer that's gotten things all loused up. Make "WE GO" Across and put it between ONE-HORSE and LAUGHING and you're perfect. Hell, if it's too hard to make "WE GO" fit in any of those 4-letter Across spaces, then just use "O'ER" as your fill-in-the-blank word. Doesn't get much more crosswordy than "O'ER!" This is the part "O'ER" was born to play, put him in! Anything but yanking "WE GO" out of sequence and wrenching it into Down position. This is the problem with having such a great idea—botch the execution even a little, and it's jarring. 

The fill in general was on the weak side. Not a Deadhead so LESH looked like a typo, honestly (this is LESH's fifth NYTXW appearance, first in eight years). UTAHN will always be my demonym nemesis (demonymesis!). Ugly as sin. SIREE should never be out without his YES companion. Window brands (PELLA) do not make for happy holiday grids. THEEU will never look good in the grid. Nor will CIT (ouch). LOL at G'BYE (another debut). That's ... inventive. Desperately inventive. See also "LET HIM." Just making up new answers out here today, Merry Christmas! As for EFFS (63A: Transcript ruiners) ... why isn't that just ELMS or something simple and nice like that? The worst answer of the day for me, though, was SLEAZO. What is with the "O," who says that? You'd call someone a SLEAZE (47D: Slimeball). A "slimeball" is a SLEAZE. SLEAZO sounds like a derelict clown. Or, like, Bingo's mortal enemy. "There was a clown who hunted dogs and SLEAZO was his name-o..." Nine times out of ten, you ask someone to fill in the missing letter and make a noun out of SLEAZ-, they're putting in an "E." 'Cause that's the term. SLEAZO, yeesh. Yeesho. This is a long and bitter way of saying I had to track down a mistake today, and SLEAZE was its name (-o). 

Bullets:

• 31A: Old dagger carried by Scottish Highlanders (DIRK) — crosswordese of yore! Also the name of an actor I love, DIRK Bogarde. He hasn't been a clue since 1998. Probably the right call, but I'd love to see him come striding into the grid on a Friday or Saturday. He's fabulous.

• 40A: Letter after three consecutive rhyming letters (IOTA) — those three letters ... I dunno, Dancer Prancer Shmancer? Surely it's three of the -ETAs. Which ones? I don't care.
• 22D: Someone who might ask "Mother, may I?" (NUN) — so the "Mother" is the Mother Superior in a convent.
• 11D: Vodka-and-pineapple juice cocktail popularized on "Sex and the City" (FLIRTINI) — I'd sooner die than waste my one cocktail a day on this abomination, buuuuuut I'm always going to cheer for cocktails in the grid, even in their more repugnant incarnations. 
• 41A: Right-eous path? (EAST) — ending on a high note. This clue is insane. It's doing a funny little dance just for your amusement. Just trying to liven up an otherwise forgettable answer. And, you know what, little clue? Good job. ("Right" is EAST ... on a map)

A few 🌲🐈Holiday Pet Pics🐕🌲 now before I go sit in the dark with my coffee and watch the sun rise (my favorite time of day). Note: PLEASE DO NOT SEND ME ANY MORE PET PICS, I'M ALL FULL UP FOR THIS YEAR, thank you.

Bella is hard to see in this picture but she needs you to know that she is there, being good (on the pillow, bottom left)

[Thanks, Martha!]

Bowie is here to make sure none of the kids f*** with Santa anymore. "Just sit down, state your toy wish, and then move along. Hands to yourself. Santa's beard is not a toy for your grubby hands, Timmy. Beat it!"

[Thanks, Barbara!]

Another in the "hostage photo" genre. Poor Finnegan. Finnegan wants to begin again, preferably without the costume. Less costume, more treats!

[Thanks, Lana!]

Billy Eckstine here has quite the life. Used to be a wild cat, now he's got fancy Italian digs (seriously, he lives in Italy, this is Italy) and lounges on the couch and enjoys the Christmas lights while his human caretakers bring him bonbons, I assume.

[Thanks, Tara!]

Rikki failed out of Stealthy Commando Snow Dog school because he kept smiling and his pink tongue would give his position away.  So now he just chases balls and enjoys the snow like a good dog.

[Thanks, Beverly!]

Finally, there's Belle, who may or may not have committed a Christmas murder. Did Santa really need Comet? Guess we'll find out!

[Thanks, Lori!]

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Black Death-era Iberian king dubbed "the Ceremonious" / SAT 10-11-25 / Johann ___, philosopher who influenced Hegel / Car touted for its dual efficiency / Symbol for electric flux, in physics / "___ Deo gloria" (Latin doctrine) / "Wax" collectible, informally / Spot to order a witbier or hefeweizen / Dominatrix's practice, for short / Like typical frat boys, informally / Serialized and melodramatic, as a show

Constructor: Sam Ezersky

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: Johann FICHTE (27D: Johann ___, philosopher who influenced Hegel) —

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (/ˈfɪxtə/; German: [ˈjoːhan ˈɡɔtliːp ˈfɪçtə]; 19 May 1762 – 29 January 1814) was a German philosopher who became a founding figure of the philosophical movement known as German idealism, which developed from the theoretical and ethical writings of Immanuel Kant.

Recently, philosophers and scholars have begun to appreciate Fichte as an important philosopher in his own right due to his original insights into the nature of self-consciousness or self-awareness. Fichte was also the originator of thesis–antithesis–synthesis, an idea that is often erroneously attributed to Hegel.

Like Descartes and Kant before him, Fichte was motivated by the problem of subjectivity and consciousness. Fichte also wrote works of political philosophy; he has a reputation as one of the fathers of German nationalism. (wikipedia)

• • •

I sometimes think about John GOWER. John GOWER was an important 14th-century English writer, a contemporary and friend of Chaucer's who wrote three major works of poetry in three different languages. I think about GOWER not just because I was trained as a medievalist and have read more Middle English poetry than I care to remember, including GOWER's most famous work in English (Confessio Amantis), but because in my head he is the prototype of a kind of name, and a kind of fame, that has special crossword relevance. That is, specialists will absolutely know who he is, but the general population absolutely will not, and so ideally his name just sits in a glass case marked "Break Only In Case of Emergency" and constructors never, ever have to use him. You could perhaps justify using him if you were desperate and everyone of the crosses was extremely clear and fair, but mostly you wouldn't go near him, even if you kinda liked him, because you know that the vast majority of people are never going to have heard of him. I bring him up today because I feel like this puzzle broke that glass case not once but twice (!), for two crossing answers (!!?). An "Iberian" king named Peter the Ceremonious!? (39A: Black Death-era Iberian king dubbed "the Ceremonious"). And I'm supposed to know his Roman numeral? (PETER IV). And he's crossed with some German philosopher (FICHTE) whose main claim to fame is influencing a much, much more famous philosopher? Put both of those guys in a DIESEL HYBRID and yikes, you've got some kind of reverse Thelma & Louise situation ("reverse" in that I would not care at all if they drove that car off a cliff). It's not that I couldn't navigate that section. I could, ultimately. It's just so bad. So desperately proper nounishly bad. At least with TYRONE (another "?"), you crossed him with a proper noun who is properly famous (it's possible you don't know LAMAR JACKSON, but multiple MVP awards in very recent years means he is in no way obscure) (53A: Youngest-ever QB to win multiple N.F.L. M.V.P. awards (by age 27)). There's some rather nice stuff in this grid, but everything in and around the HYBRID part of DIESEL HYBRID, from those awful names to AN EYE *and* AN ACT (?!?) to SOLI to whatever FALSE CUT is, kind of cast a pall over the solving experience.

For the record, John GOWER has been in the NYTXW once: January 4, 1948. After that, GOWER appeared about ten times as [Dancer champion] or [Champion of dance], and I have no idea what that is about ... oh, wait, it's not [Dancer champion], it's [Dancer Champion]—some guy named GOWER Champion who was an actor, director, choreographer, and dancer. He's got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame! But not on the Crossword Walk of Fame, it seems, as he was last seen in 1987. That gives him something in common with FICHTE, who also hasn't appeared in the NYTXW since the '80s (1981, his sole appearance). PETER IV, like FICHTE, also has just one lifetime appearance in the grid before today, though that appearance was much more recent (2020). I really wish someone would hear me out on my PETER IV / Johann FICHTE Thelma & Louise remake. It could be some kind of European fantasy time-travel deal, where they're running from, I dunno, let's say Count CHOCULA, who wants to imprison them in his S & M (SANDM) dungeon. I know, I know, it all sounds a little BROEY, but I think it could work. 

["Frankenberry! Booberry! Come! To the sex dungeon!"]

My fav moment of this puzzle was BROEY (26D: Like typical frat boys, informally). BROEY into SOAPY. I was like "are they really doing BROEY?" and then I got SOAPY and thought "I guess so!" (37A: Serialized and melodramatic, as a show). I might watch something that was BROEY if it was also SOAPY. It would probably also have to be CAMPY, which isn't here today, though I wish it were, CAMPY is always welcome in my grid. Most of the answers today, even the marquee stuff, didn't do much for me. IPHONE CAMERA feels oddly formal and long, as does LP RECORD—even more so. I have never heard anyone use the expression "LP RECORD" outside of this one specific musical context:

[I see you've sent my letters back

And my LP RECORDs and they're all scratched

I can't see the point in another day

When nobody listens to a word I say]

I did (almost) grin FROM EAR TO EAR when I got that answer—my one big moment of whoosh in this puzzle:

And the SE stack of 12s is very nice. I admired that. But otherwise, as I say, stuff like DATATYPE and DIET TIP really aren't lighting me up. That last one was particularly rough for me. I think I had it as a DIET MAP. Like, "let's map out your diet plan." I couldn't believe you'd get a trained "nutritionist" involved for a mere "TIP." Outside of the broader FICHTE/PETERIV area, though, there weren't many real struggles today. 

A few more things:

• 19A: It might be smelt? (ROE) — Smelt ROE. Fish eggs. Smelt is a type of fish. Most of you probably knew that.
• 4D: East Egg resident in "The Great Gatsby" (TOM) — I was like "I just read this, how do I not know a three-letter resident?? Who lived there besides Gatsby? No, wait, Gatsby lived in West Egg ... who lived in East Egg?" I guess TOM (Buchanan) is a supremely forgettable character (to me). DAISY Buchanan, iconic. TOM? ... again, I *just* read this book earlier this year, and he weirdly slipped my mind. 
• 8D: Engineer who supposedly found inspiration while tending to a boiling kettle (WATT) — I did not know this. Fun story:

There is a popular story that Watt was inspired to invent the steam engine by seeing a kettle boiling, the steam forcing the lid to rise and thus showing Watt the power of steam. This story is told in many forms; in some Watt is a young lad, in others he is older, sometimes it's his mother's kettle, sometimes his aunt's, suggesting that it may be apocryphal. In any event, Watt did not invent the steam engine, but significantly improved the efficiency of the existing Newcomen engine by adding a separate condenser, consistent with the now-familiar principles of thermal efficiency. The story was possibly created by Watt's son, James Watt, Jr., who was determined to preserve and embellish his father's legacy. In this light, it can be seen as akin to the story of Isaac Newton and the falling apple and his discovery of gravity. (wikipedia)

• 41D: With fewer than 11,000 people, the world's second-least-populaous country, after Vatican City (TUVALU) — most famous for being a Survivor location at least once. I wrote in TUVALU but then panicked about the last two vowels—wondering whether I had them in the right order—and so pulled the latter part of the answer and waited for confirmation from crosses. TUVULA ... looks like something, though that something is possibly just UVULA (with a "T" on the beginning). 

That's all. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Portmanteau term for airplane fuel / SAT 1-4-25 / "Holy oleo!" speaker / Shopping meccas of old / Spelling seen in credits / Language spoken in northern New York / Ancient figure called the "huey tlatoani" by his subjects / Cook's offering with chips? / Sauce named after a steward to Louis XIV / Historic founder of the Shakers / Hip-hop group with the 1990 hit "100 Miles and Runnin'"

Constructor: Sam Ezersky

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (more Medium if you didn't know the names, more Easy if you did)

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: Simon PEGG (59A: Simon of "Shaun of the Dead") —

Simon John Pegg (né Beckingham; born 14 February 1970) is an English actor, comedian and screenwriter. He came to prominence in the UK as the co-creator of the Channel 4 sitcom Spaced (1999–2001), directed by Edgar Wright. He and Wright co-wrote the films Shaun of the Dead (2004), Hot Fuzz (2007), and The World's End (2013), known collectively as the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy, all of which saw Wright directing and Pegg starring alongside Nick Frost. Pegg and Frost also wrote and starred in the sci-fi comedy film Paul (2011).

Pegg is one of the few performers to have achieved what Radio Times calls the "Holy Grail of Nerd-dom", having played popular supporting characters in Doctor Who (2005), Star Trek as Montgomery "Scotty" Scott (2009–2016), and Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015). He currently stars as Benji Dunn in the Mission: Impossible film series (2006–present). He provided the voice of Buck in Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009), Ice Age: Collision Course (2016), and The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild (2022). (wikipedia)

• • •

Not THE WORST puzzle I've ever done, not by a longshot, and not the hardest, either, but then I knew all the proper nouns. Well, almost all of them. I needed a couple of crosses to nudge my brain on ADAM SILVER (11D: David Stern's successor as N.B.A. commissioner). And I wouldn't have known EDDIE right away (15A: ___ Huang, whose 'Fresh Off the Boat" memoir was turned into an ABC sitcom)—but then I never saw the clue for EDDIE, so easily did that NE section fill itself in. Everyone else, though—totally familiar to me, including (and most helpfully) CHLOÉ ZHAO. I remember deliberately tucking her name away in my brain after she won the Oscar for 2020's Nomadland, thinking "oh she's a clue now, for sure." And while she hasn't appeared a ton, she has appeared. This is her second full-name appearance; she's also been a ZHAO clue twice (the only ZHAO ever to appear in the grid), and the CHLOÉ clue once. A name worth knowing, in all its parts, for sure. Getting that freebie up top, and especially getting that "Z," really opened things up fast. This wasn't the fastest Saturday I've ever done, but I never actually struggled, and there was only one place where my flow was even significantly impeded—when I tried to take the turn from THE WORST into the SE corner. I got the wordplay on the TORI clue easily enough (49D: Spelling seen in credits), but I just couldn't commit to SLOP, since I couldn't believe we'd get SLOP two days in a row. What kind of cafeteria is this!? So I had to stop there, go back up to the center, and come at the E and SE from there instead. Which wasn't hard. 

["The Loooove Booooat..."]

I enjoyed this one for the light workout that it was. But I can imagine some solvers finding it a bit of a namefest, especially if those names are unfamiliar. That's typically how the name game goes. Whoosh + happiness if you know 'em, GRR + grief if you don't. You'd think that would be true of any answer, but it's truer of proper nouns than other things. Proper nouns often have a very pronounced gimme/stumper fault line, and if you're on the stumper side, it doesn't feel so great. Today's names seem pretty prominent, though. There is a preponderance of names from one cultural area, namely Hollywood (CHLOÉ ZHAO, EDDIE Huang, Simon PEGG, TORI Spelling), so non- (or anti-) pop culturalists might grumble about that. I'd understand. But there actually weren't *that* many names in this thing, and the grid is pretty smooth, wide-ranging, and general-knowledge-y. Is it weird to call a Saturday puzzle "pleasant." That's what this puzzle felt like to me. Not challenging me much, but not annoying me much either. Low-key enjoyment is what I got.

Not much SLOP today. "Agora" in the singular is classic crosswordese, but in the plural it's somehow ... crosswordesier. I know that Latin plurals are "-A" to "-AE," but I don't think I knew that was the case with Greek. I'm sure I wrote in AGORAS at first (I always default to the standard English "S" plural and correct it later as needed). That was the only thing that really felt tired/old to me today (18A: Shopping meccas of old). I do not like AVGAS (AViation + GASoline) as an answer (mostly because I have no idea what that is and it seems like an awful abbr. contrivance), but whatever it is, it isn't old hat (it's made only two other NYTXW appearances—once in 2018 ... and once in 1986!?) (23D: Portmanteau term for airplane fuel). If you enjoy buying your AVGAS from AGORAE, then this puzzle must've seemed perfect to you. To me, those two answers suck, but as I have no other significant answer complaints, I can tolerate them just fine. Would've been nice to be able to leverage the negative-sounding answers in this grid for my write-up (THE WORST! SLOP! SO OVER IT! GRR! INANE!), but there's no real cause today. It's a fine puzzle.

There were some parsing challenges today, most notable with USEMBASSY (1A: Home in the country?) and NPRTOTEBAG (25D: Iconic bit of media merch). The latter ended up being easy after I got over my initial  "wait, nothing starts 'NP-'" reaction. USEMBASSY was a bit harder, as the clue was much harder. I guess the idea is that at U.S. EMBASSY is our (i.e. the U.S.'s) "home" in another "country"?? I dunno. "?" clues are great when they land, but I feel like this one has been tied to a chair and tortured. I have to mentally add too many qualifiers to make the clue make any kind of sense. Whereas with something like 48D: Refuse to eat? (SLOP), there's a nice, clean "aha" when you see the wordplay. It tracks. Instantly. Then there's 39D: Babe in the woods? (BEAR CUB), which doesn't seem like it needs a "?" at all.  Cubs are babes, they live in the woods ... Babe in the woods. Very literal. I see the play on words, we all see it, but still, if the clue works on a very literal basis, I think you leave the "?" off, if only to confuse Saturday solvers (which is what you're supposed to do to solvers on a Saturday). 

Bullets:

• 1D: Holder of the longest winning streak in N.C.A.A. men's basketball history (88 games) (UCLA) — nice fat gimme at 1-Down. This gave me AGORASE SHAG ELMO in no time.
• 31A: Language spoken in northern New York (MOHAWK) — living somewhat near northern New York helped. Got this off the "M." My only rationale was "Native American names that start with 'M'" and if you live in New York (and probably even if you don't), MOHAWK comes to mind pretty quickly.
• 8D: Maker of the 900 in '94 and the 9-3 in '99 (SAAB) — first guess: AUDI. Only rationale: four-letter car make. They should've just called the "9-3" the 6.
• 4D: Ochlocracy, by another name (MOB RULE) — got run over by OCHLOCRACY in a puzzle from days of yore and never forgot it.
• 6D: Ancient figure called the "huey tlatoani" by his subjects (AZTEC EMPEROR) — again, thank god for the "Z" in ZHAO, which made this answer much easier than it might've been. I wrote in AZTEC quickly, then reasoned my way to EMPEROR (which is to say, EMPEROR fit in the spaces provided and seemed legit).
• 54A: "Holy oleo!" speaker (ROBIN) — every time ROBIN Yount made a spectacular play at shortstop, he'd cry out "Holy oleo!" Man, baseball really was better back in the day. Where are the colorful catchphrases of old! ... Unless this clue is about ROBIN Williams in Good Morning, Vietnam, which also seems possible.

[I'm including this pic in the hopes of staving off correction emails; we'll see if it works]

• 52D: Cook's offering with chips? (IMAC) — The "Cook" here is Tim Cook, CEO of Apple Inc. The "chips" here are potato chips. Every IMAC comes with a bag of potato chips. This is why Apple is so successful.

How many Holiday Pet Pics could I possibly have left!?!? Let's find out.

Say hello to Grover Cleveland, seen here with fresh kill. In addition to Christmas treats, Grover enjoys lying across his owner's neck in the morning, which adds an extra layer of challenge to the crossword puzzle.

[Thanks, Michael]

The SuperMega belongs to Squid and Squid alone. Get your own copy.

[Thanks, Sophie]

Now that the holidays are over, it's time to undecorate the tree. Enter: Katlin.

[Thanks, Donna]

And for our final Holiday Pet Pic of the year, we've got Bugle, the "one-eyed pirate cat." He is the perfect morning coffee / crossword / blog-checking companion for his owner, Meredith. Bugle wants to give a shout-out to "grandpa Bill" (Meredith's father), who introduced Meredith to this blog. Family, traditions, one-eyed snuggle-cats ... that's what the Holidays are all about.

[Thanks, Meredith]

Thanks to everyone who submitted pet pics. I think I got to all of them. We'll do it again next year. 

See you tomorrow, I hope :)

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]

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