Beverage such as huangjiu or cheongju / SAT 5-15-21 / Odorless hydrocarbon / Overnight trendy breakfast / Mother father slangily / Incapable fighter in boxing slang

Constructor: Sam Trabucco

Relative difficulty: Challenging (very slow for me)

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: Carlos VELA (25D: Soccer star Carlos) —

Carlos Alberto Vela Garrido (born 1 March 1989) is a Mexican professional footballer who captains and plays for Major League Soccer club Los Angeles FC. Described as an incredibly versatile player who can play as a forward, winger, and attacking midfielder, Vela is known for being a creative player and prolific scorer.

Vela started his career at Mexican club Guadalajara, where he caught the eye of various European clubs after finishing as the top scorer at the 2005 FIFA U-17 World Championship, eventually joining Premier League club Arsenal that year. After joining Arsenal, he had loan spells at Spanish clubs Salamanca and Osasuna, as well as fellow English club West Bromwich Albion, settling with Real Sociedad in 2011, initially on loan and then permanently the following season. In his six-year spell with La Real, Vela played in 250 matches and scored 73 goals. In January 2018, he joined Los Angeles FC, winning the Supporters' Shield and the MLS Golden Boot in his second year, and setting a new league record for most goals in a season, with 34. He was also voted Most Valuable Player. (wikipedia)

• • •

The grid seems alright, but this was a slog for me. I just kept "ugh"-ing at clue after clue, I never felt like I got any kind of solving rhythm, and in the parts where I struggled, the payoff was repeatedly just meh. I think the best bit of fill comes right off the bat with DRAG SHOW, but it's mostly just a chore from there. Two boxing (?) clues in the same section (NE)? I was just lucky to have lived through that Riddick BOWE fight, otherwise that would've been a total mystery. It was almost a mystery as is. I was like "Oh, that guy, he's not famous ... the four-letter guy ... ends in 'E' I think ... oh yeah BOWE!" Obscure today. Also obscure: boxing slang. TOMATO CAN is nice enough fill, but as boxing slang, shrug, no idea. ON ONE HAND just doesn't stand alone well. Also in that NE section, I had IN THE no idea at 11D: Short and ON ONE no idea at 13D: Start of a two-part thought. Could only think of IN THE RED, and wanted ON ONE SIDE... instead of ON ONE HAND. Most of the solve was like this. Shrug, PLOD through crosses, get answer, shrug again. Like with READ ... I needed crosses and then though "it can't be READ can it? Like ... 'get a READ on someone?'" So I eventually *got* it, but even now it doesn't feel quite right. The whole puzzle felt like it was trying too hard to Saturdayify itself rather than be fun. I mean, DEMO UNIT? UNIT, is it? (53A: iPhone on display at an Apple Store, e.g.) I know the phrase "floor model" or "display model" or "demo model," but after I got DEMO, MODEL wouldn't fit, so here I was with just DEMO waiting for whatever random defensible but not quite right word was going to fill the void. That word was UNIT. This is exactly how exciting most of this puzzle was. 

Seems like KENOLIN x/w VELA might trip some people up. Badly. I remember KEN OLIN, but exclusively from "thirtysomething," an old show I didn't watch. I can see people imagining KENO-IN is actually someone's last name, and then not knowing VELA (VEGA is a more common name). So maybe somebody named, I dunno, Nancy KENOGIN starred on "thirtysomething." If I never saw the show (a show with no real life in reruns or on streaming services), I'm not sure how I'd know any thirtysomething actors. Crossing proper nouns ... this is an obvious issue ... but constructors and editors keep not paying attention to it. I guess on Saturday, they feel entitled to give certain solvers the middle finger. Also seems feasible that someone wouldn't know or would be unsure how to spell RAGNAROK, which makes two VELA crosses that are somewhat dicey. Proper noun pile-up with VELA in the middle seems poorly planned.

Missteps were plentiful. Whole NW was a disaster in large part because somehow, despite believing I wrote in IT, I wrote in AT at the end of 2D: Smack a baseball hard (RIP IT). So the already slightly tough SILENT B'S looked like this: SALEN-BS. I kept looking at RIP AT, but if you are only looking at the phrase and not back at the clue, RIP AT seems just fine, so it took me a loooooong time to see SILENT B'S (19A: "Dumb and Dumber" duo). Don't like OH NO NO at all, since it's just an arbitrary number of NOs after OH and I can't hear someone using two (16A: We absolutely aren't doing that!"). One, yes, three, absolutely; two is stupid, so I couldn't commit to that first NO for a bit (I had the last NO and kept wondering what two-letter word could go between OH and NO). Do kids really say "the OLDS?" Your kids aren't all assholes, you know. Weird way to go here. Just admit you put the car in your grid and clue it as the car. Your attempts at current-ness are sad. Had BREWED before WHALED (29A: Worked in Starbuck's business) and STREET FOOD before STREET MEAT (26D: Halal cart fare, informally)—I think it was the use of "fare" in the clue that made me jump to FOOD; seems like the kind of clue word you'd use when you didn't want to say FOOD. Oh well. Bizarrely gratuitous inclusion of "gay" in the clue for PUERTO Vallarta (43D: ___ Vallarta (popular gay vacation destination)). I'm thrilled by the inclusive mindset here, but the "gay" adds nothing. PUERTO Vallarta is popular with all tourists, and if you'd watched "The Love Boat," you'd know this. HEALTH SPA feels weird and redundant (30D: Where some sweaters hang). Olden. Are there unhealthy SPAs? Non-health SPAs? Where you just sit around and, like, smoke and eat trans fats and have unprotected sex with strangers? I like that the ANGORA CAT in this puzzle has been SPAYED (which cuts right through the middle of CAT), but it's one of the few little details I truly liked today.

Tricky stuff explained:

• SILENT BS because the "B"s in phrase "Dumb and Dumber" are silent
• WHALED because that what the character Starbuck did in "Moby-Dick"
• READ in the sense of "get a READ on" 
• HEALTH SPA because "sweaters" are "people who sweat"
• BRITON because Avon is a place, a county, in the west of England (9A: Avon lady, for one)
• WEBSITE because Safari is a web browser (8D: Safari destination)
• HEIR because "willing" is a punny reference to a will (the legal document) (22A: Willing participant?)

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Childcare expert LeShan / SUN 9-20-20 / Jazz composer Beiderbecke / Yellow variety of quartz / 14th-century king of Aragon / Unpopular legislation of 1773 / Internet meme with grammatically incorrect captions / Philosopher who tutored Nero / Tokyo before it was Tokyo / Game in which each player starts with score of 501 / Norse troublemaker

Constructor: Sam Trabucco

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (mid-11s)

THEME: "Word Ladders" — the words in the word ladder (succession of four-letter answers where one letter is changed with each iteration) are actually "ladders," in the sense that they act as paths along which a couple of Across answers drop or rise three levels respectively:

Theme answers:

• SURPRISE PARTY / UNDESIRABLE
• STERILE GLOVE / TRAVEL IRON
• PROFILE PIC / FOR THE LIFE OF ME
• FRUIT FILLING / MOLLIFYING
• ROOT OF ALL EVIL / VANILLA FLAN

Word of the Day: LESTOIL (99A: Clorox cleanser) —

Lestoil is a registered trade name of Clorox for a heavy-duty multipurpose cleanser product, used to remove extremely difficult laundry stains, dissolve water-based and oil-based paints, and clean grease, oil, paint, and adhesives from floors and surfaces.

It was introduced as a dry cleaning fluid for laundry in 1933. (wikipedia)

• • •

Not sure how to describe my feelings here. As an architectural feat, it's pretty impressive. Takes the (awful, shopworn) theme concept of the word ladder (which here goes from RISE to FALL) and soups it up by making the rungs of the "ladder" into actual ladders by which themers "rise" and "fall" (three rows in either direction). Conceptually it is tight and interesting. And yet I found solving it tedious. Once I got the gist of the theme, I just had to remember that there was going to be rising and falling, so nothing interesting really happened except the fussiness of keeping the rising and falling straight, and then, further, there was so much jarring fill that it just ate into any of the whimsical pleasure the theme might have provided. LESTOIL ... ??? ... never heard of it. Never seen it. Hasn't appeared in the NYTXW since I started blogging (fourteen years ago this week!). CITRINE? (71A: Yellow variety of quartz) I'm sure it is what the puzzle says it is, but again, I got the answer and just had no way of knowing if what I had was right (though CITRINE at least sounded plausible—LESTOIL looked wrong as hell). And what year is "I Love It" even from? You could've at least included that in the clue, because ICONA (!?!?!?!), yeeow, no (36D: "I Love It" duo ___ Pop). One hit, eight years ago. I mean, even if ICONA Pop were somehow ABBA-famous, ICONA on its own is never, ever, ever gonna be good fill. There's also lots of crosswordesey stuff that made me make faces (PETERIV ATEIN USRDA ADREP EDO ETTU NEE EES (ugh) CINES EDA NOE LGS AOL ESAU ELL ESO ETC. etc.). So I acknowledge the architectural feat, but as frequently happens with architectural feats, the payoff at the level of solving pleasure just wasn't there. Maybe if the fill had been stronger, the thematic workmanship could've carried the day, I don't know.

Really hate the idea that asterisks are somehow stars. Also *, *** and ***** are not MIXED REVIEWS (66D) . Each is its own review. REVIEWS, maybe, maybe, but you'd need something like "collectively" to make this clue work, though even then it wouldn't work because, as I say, an asterisk is not a star. I read Jane Eyre but not in school so wow I really missed the fact that fire is somehow a MOTIF. Not among the first five or ten things I think of when I think of Jane Eyre but OK. Is LOLCAT still a thing? (105D: Internet meme with grammatically incorrect captions). Is BRODATE? (43A: Occasion for male bonding, in modern lingo). If it's a thing, it's an awful thing. "Modern lingo," my eye. Stop bro-ing everything. The NYTXW is enough of a brofest as it is. It's a date. Just say "date." Also not a thing, for future reference: MANCRUSH. Like, you have a crush on a dude. Accept it. Embrace it. It's a CRUSH. It's OK. You can still be straight or whatever. Yeesh. Twice today I had to wait for the cross to see what gender some word was gonna be—never fun. So it was CARA not CARO, and OTRO not OTRA. I think my favorite part of the puzzle was actually "I CALL DIBS!" (123A: "That one's mine!") though again, I do acknowledge that the theme is thoughtful and reasonably well executed. Just not as fun to solve as I'd like. OK bye.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Violinist Leopold / SUN 3-1-20 / Old Spanish bread / Waterside lodging with portmanteau name / Rowing machine in fitness lingo / 1910s flying star / Overseas landmark located in Elizabeth Tower / Chocolaty post cereal / Literary protagonist named after king of Israel / Noted Chinese-American fashion designer / Payment to a freelancer for unpublished work

Constructor: Sam Trabucco

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium to Medium (10:15)

THEME: "Letter Dictation" — Phrases that have words that sound like letters in them are clued as if they related to the letter ... so the (all-caps) clue is a literal representation of the answer, if the answer is taken as an auditory pun referring to a letter of the alphabet. Thus:

Theme answers:

• SPLIT PEA SOUP (20A: GAZACHO) ("gazpacho" is a "soup" from which the "P" has "SPLIT")
• GIVE THE STINK EYE (29A: SMEILL) ("smell" is a "stink" to which an "I" has been given)
• LONG TIME NO SEE (47A: ENTURIES) ("centuries" is a "LONG TIME" in which there is no "C")
• OH BY THE WAY (62A: TECHNIQUEO) ("technique" is a "WAY" that the letter "O" is sitting "by")
• YEAH WHY NOT (66A: DEFINITEL) ("definitely" is a word meaning "yeah" only here the "Y" is "NOT" (present))
• BE IN THE MOMENT (82A: INSTBANT) ("instant" is a "moment" and "B" is "IN" it)
• GREEN TEA EXTRACT (96A: ENVIRONMENAL) ("environmental" means "green" but here the "T" has been "EXTRACT(ed)")
• ARE YOU WITH ME? (110A: RUMYSELF) ("R" and "U" w/ "myself," i.e. "ME")

Word of the Day: Leopold AUER (72A: Violinist Leopold) —

Leopold von Auer (Hungarian: Auer Lipót; June 7, 1845 – July 15, 1930) was a Hungarian violinist, academic, conductor and composer, best known as an outstanding violin teacher. [...] Auer is remembered as one of the most important pedagogues of the violin, and was one of the most sought-after teachers for gifted students. "Auer's position in the history of violin playing is based on his teaching." Many notable virtuoso violinists were among his students, including Mischa Elman, Konstanty Gorski, Jascha Heifetz, Nathan Milstein, Toscha Seidel, Efrem Zimbalist, Georges Boulanger, Benno Rabinof, Kathleen Parlow, Julia Klumpke, Thelma Given, Sylvia Lent, Kemp Stillings, and Oscar Shumsky. Among these were "some of the greatest violinists" of the twentieth century. (wikipedia)

• • •

I'm going to start by doing something I never do; I'm going to quote another crossword blog. This is from Jeff Chen at xwordinfo: "NO LIKEY … that feels like something okay for me to say [...] Not sure if Sam gets the same pass." I am on a social media fast for Lent, so I cannot do what I normally do when an answer makes me wince, which is go on Twitter and confirm that someone, anyone, heard what I heard. I think I audibly shouted at "NO LIKEY" when I got it. I think what I shouted was "Nooooooo." It is a phrase that reeks of Chinglish, i.e. a kind of mocking fake-Asian speak. The phrase "Me NO LIKEY" would drive that point home a little harder, perhaps, but dropping the "Me" does not in anyway erase the connotations of racial mockery. I get that not everyone will have these associations. But as you can see from Jeff's (very mild) response, NO LIKEY is gonna read as racial caricature to a *bunch* of solvers, and someone, somewhere along the line—for sure, the editor, if no one else—should've said "no" to this, should've recognized that this is potentially problematic language, should've foreseen that it would go down badly-to-very-badly with some subset of solvers. I would be agasp and agog and all the a-words if *none* of test-solvers raised this as a potential issue. Mostly I'm genuinely aghast that the editor is so bad at his job. That his ear is so tin. That he just doesn't care. And that the NYT as an institution just doesn't care. This isn't a one-time thing. He's barely one year off from the whole BEANER incident, for god's sake. He can't keep stumbling into racism and then claiming he didn't know any better. To claim that NO LIKEY is just an [Informal "Ugh!"] ... I dunno, man. I just don't know.


The theme? It's clever. It works. It's fine. Much of the rest of the puzzle, however, feels off (yet again). "HOPE TO GOD!" is not a stand-alone phrase, and therefore absolutely does Not swap out for 2D: "With any luck!" ... [Wish desperately], that would work for HOPE TO GOD. Further, the phrase is "all or nothing." ALL OR NONE is just awkward (3D: Uncompromising). OREOOS is somehow more irksome than just plain OREO. Way way more irksome. Constructors are using it all the time now, trying to seem clever when all they are is desperate for more vowels. As I've said before, GENYERS is not now and will never be a thing. They're "millennials" and that is all that they are. You might be able to get away with just GEN Y, as that had currency for maybe a hot second, but GENYERS is gruesome. No one knows who Leopold AUER is. Just keepin' it real. I mean, I do, because I had to do this whole AUER investigation way back when (circa 2007) when there was massive AUER confusion around which AUER was the violinist and which was the (somewhat better known) actor? Mischa, I think?? Yes, that's it.


BOATEL remains a deeply dumb word (95D: Waterside lodging with a portmanteau name). What the hell is a BLEEP CENSOR?? (64D: Curse remover). I get that curses are bleeped on network TV (say) and that that is a form of censorship, but is BLEEP CENSOR someone's job?? Is it a machine? Bizarre. SMOKE RINGs are not at all hard to blow (40D: Something that's not easy to blow). I blew them all the time when I smoked. For a while, I was convinced that it was the primary reason I smoked. Diverting. Meditative. Then I went to the doctor at age 21 for some unrelated thing and he asked if I smoked and I was like "... yes" and he just looked at me like "you ****ing idiot" and I was like "I know, I know" and I quit the next month. I don't miss it, but I do miss the rings a little. I had DAS before AGS (109D: Chief legal officers: Abbr.) and NBC before BBC (60A: Original airer of "The Office"), which was the closest thing to a pitfall in this whole puzzle. That's because I was certain about NBC, which was the original airer of the *US* version of "The Office." So I didn't change that "N" which meant I couldn't see BEAST and since I couldn't remember YANN I had a real snafu on my hands in the heartland of the grid. Two themers were implicated. But I figured Grendel had to be a BEAST (60D) and finally extricated myself from there. Really liked D-WADE (86D: Nickname of the Miami Heat's all-time leader in points, games, assists and steals) and KILL FEE (51A: Payment to a freelancer for unpublished work) as answers. Nice stuff. But nothing but nothing had any hope of getting the awful taste of NO LIKEY out of my mouth.



Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Golfer Carol who won 1965 US Women's Open / FRI 12-27-19 / Establishment with 12 cabins in classic 1960 film / Smith player of doctor on doctor who / Co-creator of Watchmen comic books / Historic speaker at Israel's Knesset on 11/20/1977 / Mountebanks less formally

Constructor: Sam Trabucco

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (for me) (6:24)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: BOTNETS (21A: Malicious creations of hackers) —

A botnet is a number of Internet-connected devices, each of which is running one or more bots. Botnets can be used to perform distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS attack), steal data, send spam, and allows the attacker to access the device and its connection. The owner can control the botnet using command and control (C&C) software. The word "botnet" is a combination of the words "robot" and "network". The term is usually used with a negative or malicious connotation. (wikipedia)

• • •

I had no strong positive or negative feelings about this one. It's fine. I do think the Friday NYTXW has an obligation to be somewhat better than fine, but there's nothing particularly *wrong* with this grid. It just doesn't have much sparkle or personality. It's fine. It's full of ... things. Real things. Maybe it's the editing / cluing that's the problem—the voice. It just doesn't have one, or not an interesting one, anyway. It all just feels very pro forma and workmanlike. I just can't see being excited to put any of these answers in the grid, and with themelesses, exciting answers should be the seeds—the things you build your grid out from. Always excited to see ALANMOORE, but I've seen him before. Same with BATESMOTEL. FROZEN MARGARITA is probably the snazziest thing here, and it occupies its rightful place of centrality. I just didn't experience any "ooh, good one!" moments, which, on a Friday (the best day) is a bit disappointing. I also found the puzzle frustrating to solve not just because of the clue difficulty but because of names I didn't know. A MATT here, a MANN there. The answers ... don't seem like terribly important people. I dunno. At least if you're teaching me a new name, give me someone it seems like it might be worth knowing. There have been a million "Doctor Who" doctors, Who cares? And a golfer who won a tournament 55 years ago??? There are so many great MANNs you could've gone with: a barely consequential golfer of yore just didn't do anything fo r me. Of course the relative delightfulness of names varies from solver to solver, so you may feel differently. But take GOTYE. I got(yed) it easily, but I don't think it's *good*. A single hit 7 years ago, and a name that is utterly uninferrable at every letter ... is not great fill. You really gotta be careful with names.


I struggled to get any real flow going with this one (though the NW and especially the SE went much faster than the rest of it). Made a ton of mistakes. Here are some of them:

Mistakes:

• IVORY for EBONY (4D: Key material) — the fact that the "O" and the "Y" worked in the crosses made this one pretty tenacious. I was very lucky that SAT (25A: Rested) and HUH? (31A: "You said what?") were both correct guesses, and that I was (thus) able to see FELT AT HOME with only three letters in place.
• SAGS for SETS (13D: Goes down) — thank god ALAN MOORE set me straight, 'cause I felt pretty good about SAGS.
• SODA for COLA (49D: Mixer option) — I mean, of course I made this error; it's a classic error, and I'm always going to make it: SODA for COLA, COLA for SODA ... I'm just doomed that way.
• OBE for DSO (54D: Brit. military honor) — a. I think you mean "honour" and b. uggggggh of all the bygone clues of yore, the Brit. military honor is the one I would like to be the bygoneiest.
• GEEK for KOOK (39A: Weirdo) — I did think the clue was a *little* harsh for GEEK, but I had that terminal "K" and just ran with the first thing that came to mind.
• STEN (!?) for ICBM (48D: Cold War weapon, for short) — I knew pretty much as I was writing in STEN that it was wrong and that ICBM was another, probably stronger possibility. But still, for the record, I definitely wrote in STEN. 

Other struggles included: wanting FROST or FROSTED or FROSTY something at 34A: It's icy and coated with salt (FROZEN MARGARITA); wanting OH MY something for the (to me, Very difficulty) "OH, LORDY!" (45A: "Heavens!"); wanting absolutely nothing for ELON, which, crossing the absolutely unknown MANN, was brutal (50D: Southern university or the town it's in); having ZERO and then zero idea what could follow (35D: Favorable loan term); figuring the [Malicious creations of hackers] were some kind of BOTS (i.e. I wanted BOTS at the end of the word); and forgetting Stormy Daniels was a PORN STAR (for some reason, I just thought she was a stripper—look, I try really hard not to pay attention to the most of the more lurid *&$^ associated with the current administration, I really do, it's just too much soul-crushing sludge for a decent human mind to bear) (10D: Stormy Daniels, e.g.). Glad to see ALAN MOORE clued as *co-*creator of "Watchmen"—was half-hoping the answer to that clue was going to be DAVE GIBBONS. Comics artists are often creators of worlds, not just secondary illustrators, and nowhere is that more true than in "Watchmen." I hope the next ALAN MOORE clue recognizes his vast and influential post-DC output ("League of Extraordinary Gentlemen," "From Hell," "Tom Strong," "Promethea," etc.). But, you know, baby steps.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Arcade game spinoff of 1983 / SAT 10-26-19 / Spiritual realms in religious cosmology / Riddle in Zen Buddhism / Girlfriend on Orange is New Black / Ballroom alternatives to foxtrot

Constructor: Sam Trabucco

Relative difficulty: Easy or Easy-Medium (untimed, clipboard solve)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: ACHATES (44A: Loyal friend to Aeneas) —

In the Aeneid, Achates (Ancient Greek: Ἀχάτης, "good, faithful Achates", fidus Achates as he was called) was a close friend of Aeneas; his name became a by-word for an intimate companion. // Achates accompanied Aeneas throughout his adventures, reaching Carthage with him in disguise when the pair were scouting the area, and leading him to the Sibyl of Cumae.  Virgil represents him as remarkable for his fidelity, and a perennial type of that virtue. However, despite being Aeneas's most important Trojan, he is notable for his lack of character development. In fact, he has only four spoken lines in the entire epic. Aeneas, surrounded by only a shadowy cast of allies, is thus emphasised as the lone protagonist and at the same time cut off from help on his quest. (wikipedia)

• • •

I had so many nice things to say about this puzzle. I still have, I guess. But my considerable feelings of good will, built up over solving the top and middle of the grid, all went pffft with a single answer in the SW. No, not ACHATES (although dang, that is pretty in-the-weeds ... I teach Aeneid every year and even I was like "o man what is that dude's name!?"). No, the mood ruiner today was ASSANGE (35D: Author of the 2012 book "Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet). Specifically, the clue, which so narrowly and vaguely refers to him that you (if you're me) have to spend time waiting for the name to come into view, building up anticipation. "Ooh, who will it be!?!?! Let's see .... Wait ... Wait, what? Ugh, that guy? That Guy!? He's just ... 'Author'!? Oh ... *&$^% you!" I honestly think that it's not so much the dude's name (which I have endured and can endure in grids) as the coy, evasive, enormity-skirting "Author..." clue. Nothing about his being a patsy of Russian intelligence agencies (allegedly...) or his being a sexual assailant (allegedly...) but, just, an author of a book about freedom! And the future! With a wacky, kind of punny name! What fun! Ugh. Absolute Mood Killer. The neutrality of the clue was bad, and the fact that the neutrality caused me to have to puzzle it out, i.e. spend more time with it, anticipating what it would be ... yeah, that made it all so much worse. [Wikileaks founder], fine, that's true enough, and you're not teasingly hiding him from me, so ... I can deal. But this way, with this clue? I could hear the joy balloon deflating in my mind as soon as I figured out ASSANGE. You made me play "What's My Line?" and the Mystery Guest was ASSANGE, which is just rude. Yuck and barf. How can you not ... understand ... that certain names are toxic and that you have to handle (i.e. clue) them carefully or don't touch them at all?! Puzzle editing!!! (Side note: I know METOOISM has nothing to do with the #MeToo movement, but still, putting ASSANGE and METOO in the same grid, yeeeeeeesh)


This puzzle is weirdly overreliant on unlikely plurals, like ASTRAL PLANES plural and ONE-STEPS plural, but other than that, I liked most of the grid, for sure. METOOISM was a great weird answer to uncover (13A: Imitative practice). I had the back end first and was like "whaaaat ends -OOISM?" Great clue on LEOPARD PRINT (27A: Hot spots?) and METRIC SYSTEM (18D: Many of the world's rulers use it) and even PÈRE (28D: Champagne pop) ('cause pop = father and Champagne is a place in France). I would've said IT'S A GIRL is "often" associated with the color pink, not "typically"—it's a fine distinction, but kind of steers it away from normativity in a way I like better (51A: Message typically associated with the color pink). Actually, I wouldn't have touched "pink" at all, probably, but whatever. Not so keen on ANGE (esp. crossing ASS ... ANGE). IBI is another mildly icky foreignism (51D: There: Lat.). But the irksome stuff was pretty small and infrequent. I was more into the LEOPARD PRINT-wearing BREAK DANCERS at the center of it all. ALL RISE!


Had most trouble with the NE, where both BIG LIE (16A: Propagandist's technique) and MORDANT (18A: Sharply sarcastic) were not quick to cut across. Once I got MIR, though, MORDANT followed pretty quick, and then lucky guess of MOTHY (off the "M") set the rest of the corner straight in no time. I thought the video game was PAC-MAN, JR, so really waited to see what that first letter was (30D: Arcade game spinoff of 1983). Me: "Wait ... they made ... a MR. PAC-MAN? I thought ... PAC-MAN ... was MR. PAC-MAN." Now I'm imagining Pac-Man saying "MR. PAC-MAN was my father, call me 'Steve', please..." Anyway, that was weird. Loved SAKE CUP (46A: Vessel at a Japanese restaurant). Less keen on the single THIN MINT, and how do you know it doesn't "help with weight loss"? (11D: Snack that, despite its name, doesn't help with weight loss) Maybe I eat a THIN MINT or six and I feel sated and am less inclined to eat substantially between meals. You don't know me! Now I just want to go defiantly gorge on THIN MINTs and then lose weight, just to prove this puzzle wrong. Where was I? Oh, yeah, I liked this puzzle, very much, until I didn't, which is tragic, really.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Often-reddish quartz / SAT 7-20-19 / Best-selling game with hexagonal board / Pioneering thrash metal band with its own music festival Gigantour

Constructor: Sam Trabucco

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (honestly it felt pretty easy, but clock said 8:48 when I was done, and ... I wasn't actually done, because I had errors that took me another minute to sort out)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: JANK (42A: Of very poor quality, in modern slang) —

google.com

• • •

Hey, I just learned that a JANKER is a device for transporting logs (Scot.). Handy! Honestly, though, that _ANK / _ASPER crossing was a teeny bit dicey for me. I know "janky," and I guess I have heard JANK (which means ... the same thing??), but I honestly considered DANK, and then wondered how it was possible that I've never really known what DANK meant at all (me : DANK :: Joni Mitchell : clouds). *Thank*fully I knew (vaguely) that JASPER was some kind of stone (don't ask me which kind) (42D: Often-reddish quartz), and DASPER seemed super-dumb, so felt pretty confident in that "J." The main memorable moment in this puzzle, however, was not a fun one. It was my ultra-confidently (and, to be quite honest, *correctly*) putting in LEROY at 38A: Man's name that means "the king" (ELROY). See, LEROY is a name that both means "the king" *and* might belong to a non-toon human being. ELROY is solely a Jetson, whereas Leroy Brown (both the titular Jim Croce character and Encyclopedia Brown!) and Leroy Robert "Satchel" Paige and artist LeRoy Neiman and, uh, former Mariners rightfielder Leroy Stanton are all very real Leroys. Whereas when I google ELROY my first hit is a Wisconsin town of about a thousand souls. Seriously, this is the big image at the top of the first page of hits:

So when I finished I had RETILD (23D) and SEEDRIDE (!) (35D), which I knew were wrong, but I just couldn't see how anything in the grid was off. That's how solid "Leroy" seemed. Eventually I saw SLEDRIDE (35D: It's going downhill) and got to the "right" answer.

first thing I put in the grid (2D: Nebula Award winner Frederik)

The one thing I really liked about the puzzle was "BEER ME!" (59A: "Another Bud, bud!"), though I haaaaaaate the clue, which no one would say, ever. Or, you know, I hope not, 'cause it's terrible. Less terrible, but still not great, is the "AH" at the beginning of "AH, THIS IS THE LIFE" (34A: Comment of complete contentment). It's a pretty well-known crossword fact that the sound one makes when luxuriating at a spa or some other place of deep relaxation and, let's say, contentment, is "AHH" or maybe "AAH," but not "AH," which is really just a tepid form of "AHA." As in "ah, I see." The whole deal with the sound you make before saying "THIS IS THE LIFE" is that you are siiiiighing it, and the mere two-letter "AH" does not convey this sense of audible bliss at all. It's like someone just stumbled on "the life," and was like "ah ... I guess this is it." Like they found the sock they were looking for.

("... and this is Canada")

Other issues:

• 12D: Complained loudly and publicly (MADE A STINK) — had MADE A SCENE, as did you at some point, I'm guessing
• 32D: Capital on the Balkan Peninsula (TIRANE) — ugh, *this* place. Puzzle can never decide whether it's final letter is "E" or "A," so I can't either
• 20A: "Bandleader" with a 1967 #1 album (SGT. PEPPER) — had "SG-" to start and thought, "well, that's wrong ..."
• 8D: Best-selling game with a hexagonal board (SETTLERS OF CATAN) — I guess lots of people play this. I know the name, of course, but was reluctant to put it in, as I thought "Catan" was spelled like "Bataan," i.e. with two a's. I guess it's just called CATAN now??? My nerd friend seemed to suggest that. I wouldn't know.
• 15A: Fix without doctoring (HOME CURE) — oof. Pretty sure term you're looking for is "home remedy"

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Violin virtuoso Leopold / WED 6-19-19 / Lohengrin soprano / Invention celebrated by NBC's peacock logo / Card game akin to whist

Constructor: Sam Trabucco

Relative difficulty: Challenging (I got stuck, stopped trying, let the clock run ... this was just a really unpleasant experience)

THEME: MARRIED MEN (62A: Bachelors no more ... or, literally, the answers to the six starred clues) — "literally" being pushed to its limits here ... the theme answers are all two men's names squished together (so ... "married?"):

Theme answers:

• PHIL/ANDERS (17A: *Plays around (4 & 6))
• RUSS/IAN (23A: *Language in which "hello" is "privet" (4 & 3))
• BAR T/RICK (25A: *Opening a beer bottle with a ring, e.g. (4 & 4))
• RICO/CHET (38A: *Bounce (4 & 4))
• NORM/ANDY (53A: *Omaha Beach locale (4 & 4))
• CAL/GARY (55A: *1988 Winter Olympics host (3 & 4))

Word of the Day: CODONS (6D: Genetic sequences) —

noun

BIOCHEMISTRY

1. a sequence of three nucleotides which together form a unit of genetic code in a DNA or RNA molecule. (google)

• • •

This is just wrong in so many ways. First, it's a Thursday puzzle, in difficulty level and trickiness. Misplaced, badly. I stopped timing, but if I'd finished in a normal fashion—if the upper middle hadn't stopped me cold, and I hadn't just stopped caring / trying—I'd've come in wellllll over my Wednesday average. So it's misplaced. It's also oversized for insufficiently good reason. You need to put an 8 in the middle? OK, but ... if you're gonna screw w/ grid dimensions, your theme better be super good, and this one really is not. It's Abutting Men, not MARRIED MEN. How are they "married"? That is an ATROCITY of a revealer. Also, who is named "Anders"? OK, in other countries, sure, but ... yeesh, that is one hell of an outlier "name." CAL? Silent or Ripken or GTFO. Again, I don't know how "married" works here. Like ... yoked? MARRIED MEN is just so bad, so unsnappy, so nothing. And the little numbers in parentheses after the clue ... not helpful. Just confusing.


Then there's the grid design—so instead of just contenting with the weird theme, solvers have to contend with these absurd huge Saturday corners. Separate puzzles unto themselves. Whole puzzle had Fri/Sat cluing. Had trouble getting little stuff like ERIE, OFT, TSA, TOLL, TRIG. Then there's the painful crosswordese. ITER!?!?! AUER!? LOL I haven't seen that antiquated name for like a decade. ECARTE, ugh. It's like that old Latin saying: ICEE OPER OMNIA. ["Lohengrin" soprano]?!?!?! Why? Why? On a Wednesday, why? I don't even know what "Lohengrin" is (I see it's Wagner. Great.). The worst was ADAH. Who? My god that is crosswordese. So stale, so obscure, it hasn't been in the NYTXW for eight years, and this is only the third appearance in the 13 years I've been blogging. Makes AMAH look fresha and fun. These answers, with characters from minor operas and tertiary biblical characters and 19th-century Russian violinists, cause this puzzle to Reek of the Maleska era (aka the bad old days). Because I didn't know ADAH, and I didn't know CODONS (only the third appearance, singular or plural, in this century), and I thought GRAYED was the English spelling, I had absolutely no idea what was going on at 28A: 27-Across, e.g. (SHADE). This is what my grid looked like when I basically quit:

That ridiculous cross-reference (why do that?) is so dumb. It's already gonna be hard enough to get, running through weird answers, colloquialisms, and obscurities. I have no confidence in the way you're gonna spell HOO BOY (I thought puzzle might go "WOO BOY!"); BAD COP has a nutso clue (25D: Dark blue?); ADAH is from the mustiest corner of the Bible; GREYED is an English variant ... and through all that, you run an answer with a lousy (truly lousy) cross-ref clue. Why? Because it x-refs the clue immediately before it? Why Is That A Thing? Who Reads The Across Clues Sequentially? How has this puzzle managed to make a gay marriage puzzle this off-putting and dull?


Had SLOVEN for SCHLUB (2D: Disheveled sort), and that pretty much encapsulates my entire experience with this thing—trying vainly, at every turn, to figure out a disheveled thing. Also BERT for BURT (and thus EXTRA for ULTRA) (19A: Very, very). Pfft. THANK GOD it's over.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. Aimee Lucido's American Values Crossword Club (AVXC) puzzle (Jun. 19, "Shrunken Heads") (subscribe here) was so much more delightful than this thing. Wish I hadn't done it first. I need something to get the taste of this one out of my mouth.

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Classic British two-seater / SAT 3-9-19 / Freeze that extends out from coastline / Goal of having no unread emails / Drink with espresso whipped cream / Pianist's finger-sliding / Some workers who stretch plastic materials / Oxymoronic skiing condition / Guys dolls composer lyricist

Constructor: Sam Trabucco

Relative difficulty: Challenging (close to 10, maybe ... I paused to take my coat off (??) and I also had to hunt down a dumb typo)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: DRAWMEN (45A: Some workers who stretch plastic materials) —

a worker who draws precut plastic materials to desired shapes in a hand or power press (m-w)

• • •

Well WHIT and TANKINI and good night! I mean Good and Night. I have rarely had a pair of mutually "confirming" wrong answers wreck me like that, right from the get-go (1D: Little bit / 17A: Modest article of swimwear with a portmanteau name). And WHIT gave me the (correct) "I" for "I DECLARE," so I was horrifically locked into wrongness up there. Even after I'd given up on that corner and gone and eventually solved the rest of the grid, even after breaking back into that corner from the outside with ALRIGHTY THEN, even after taking out WHIT, I just couldn't break through. New problem after new problem after new problem. Changed WHIT to ... DRIP. Briefly wondered if perhaps there existed an article of swimwear as ultra-modest as the PARKINI ("The Parka You Wear In The Pool!"). And even after, finally, I got what piece of swimwear they were after, I went with BIRKINI ... because I had REDID for 2D: Brought back (REDUX), which I think is actually the hardest thing in the puzzle. Just brutal. Looks verbal, is adjectival? So, yeah, first "completed" grid had BIRKINI / REDID. Yeah, I know there are no [Sorority letters] called DIS (ugh, [Sorority letters], worst worst worst, i.e. most useless, Greek letter clue type). I am kind of resentful of DILI up there, which is some Maleska-era arcane geographical stuff. Yeah yeah, it's a capital blah blah blah. It's obscure. (5D: Capital and largest city of East Timor)

The SW was also tough, but nowhere near as touch as the NW for me. I had ZERO in place and so got INBOXZERO right away (common concept to me, not sure why). But DRAWMEN, ugh, oof, jeez, other exclamations. What in the world? You really gotta know when to say "No" to your wordlist. That answer is dire. More dire than FASTICE, which sounds like a hockey or maybe a speed-skating term to me (46A: Freeze that extends out from a coastline). But back to the SW: found the names easy (KNOWLES, ELLEN, TESS), but still had to hack hack hack at the [Classic British two-seater], because even after guessing MIL (28A: Significant investment, informally), and getting that the car was an MG, I still couldn't put MIDGET together, partly because of DRAWMEN (Ugh ... ugh REDUX!), but mostly because I went with PULLED at 50A: Took in (GULLED). I was thinking [Took in] in the sense of "earned" (financially). I had one other major mistake in the NE, where the "P" from PERU made me certain the answer to 9D: Alternatives to tablets (GELCAPS) was LAPTOPS. I even overrode the "E" in VENTI to make LAPTOPS happen. Blargh. But somehow that mistake was easier to pull myself out of than the PULLED mistake and especially alllll the mistakes I made in the NW, starting with WHIT / TANKINI. Good night.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. XMEN crossing DRAWMEN = too MEN-y MEN in one place

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Ph-neutral vitamin brand / THU 2-21-19 / Magical basic used to view one's memories in Harry Potter books / Chicago landmark named for its resemblance to legume / Player of V in V for Vendetta / Classic Camaro informally / Online handle for Xbox player

Constructor: Sam Trabucco

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (with probably wide variation based on your knowledge of movie trivia) (5:09)

THEME: CHARACTER ACTOR (54A: 15-, 26-, 33- or 39-Across, punnily?) — themers are actors who played characters that were literally "characters" (i.e. letters of the alphabet):

Theme answers:

• PATRICK STEWART (15A: Player of X in "X-Men")
• JUDI DENCH (26A: Player of M in "GoldenEye")
• HUGO WEAVING (33A: Player of V in "V for Vendetta")
• WILL SMITH (39A: Player of J in "Men in Black")

Word of the Day: THE BEAN (37A: Chicago landmark nicknamed for its resemblance to a legume) —

Cloud Gate is a public sculpture by Indian-born British artist Sir Anish Kapoor, that is the centerpiece of AT&T Plaza at Millennium Park in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois. The sculpture and AT&T Plaza are located on top of Park Grill, between the Chase Promenade and McCormick Tribune Plaza & Ice Rink. Constructed between 2004 and 2006, the sculpture is nicknamed The Bean because of its shape. Made up of 168 stainless steel plates welded together, its highly polished exterior has no visible seams. It measures 33 by 66 by 42 feet (10 by 20 by 13 m), and weighs 110 short tons (100 t; 98 long tons). (wikipedia) 

• • •

I think the theme idea is pretty good. There's one major problem, though, and that's the clue for PATRICK STEWART (15A: Player of X in "X-Men"). He's "Professor X." He is never not "Professor X." Malcolm X is more "X" than Professor X is "X."

And speaking of ANAL ... why? Why!? It's totally unnecessary. Easily replaceable with totally acceptable fill. Tiny alterations to fill down there would totally obviate the need for ANAL, which is a word you should use only when you have to (I used it once, and still regret it). I'm gonna say that ANAL is the result of Scrabble-f***ing (i.e. he wanted the "J" for some reason ... probably the "X" too, which adds absolutely nothing and probably helps make that whole little area much worse than it could be otherwise). But back to X: no. Your puzzle is kinda D.O.A. after that. Again, fine idea, but he's not X. Also, this is a little trivia-heavy, not just in the theme, but in the preponderance of proper nouns like HOWE, ESTER-C (!?), THE BEAN, ERNEST whoever, etc. I liked PENSIEVE because I like the HP books, but that's yet another bit of trivia. Your theme is already *entirely* trivia-based, maybe tone down that stuff in the rest of the grid. Also eliminate ODIC. And while you're at it, the odious TECHBRO and ... whatever DUDETTE is. Yuck and yuck.


Five things:

• 5A: "A Farewell to Arms" subj. (WWI)— really, really flailed here because of the crosses. The (good) clue on WICKS was hard (5D: Ones going down in flames?) and the (less good) clue on WAKE was also hard (6D: Shake, maybe).
• 35D: Online handle for an Xbox player (GAMERTAG) — if you say so. Gaming terminology is never gonna be my thing, just as gratuitous "Game of Thrones" clues are never (ever) gonna be my things. So many JONs in the world ... yet another reason to turn ANAL to ARAL and JON to, say, FOR.
• 59A: Try to get a good look (PEER) — I had LEER
• 57A: Answer to the old riddle ... (A TREE)  — honestly, the clue completely lost me at "old riddle"; I just checked out and waited for crosses to tell me what the answer was (it wasn't, uh, great)
• 61A: A really long time (AGES) — got fooled by this one (singular clue, plural answer). Had the "A" and wrote in AEON. Sidenote: ERAS are not necessarily [Really long times]. "Really long" in relation to what? The Obama Era was eight years, right? That's not a "really long time."

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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