Some arcade habitués / SAT 8-6-2022 / For whom the gymnast Nadia Comaneci won gold in 1976 / 1984 #3 hit with the lyric "Ain't no law against it yet" / Sheltie shelterer, in brief / Worker who processes wool

Constructor: Byron Walden

Relative difficulty: Medium (mostly)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: EDSELS (41D: Group with the 1961 hit "Rama Lama Ding Dong," with "the") —

The Edsels were an American doo-wop group active during the late 1950s and early 1960s. The name of the group was originally The Essos, after the oil company (!!!), but was changed to match the new Ford automobile, the Edsel. They recorded over 25 songs and had multiple performances on Dick Clark's American Bandstand.

Today the group is known almost exclusively for "Rama Lama Ding Dong," written by lead singer George "Wydell" Jones, Jr. The song was recorded in 1957 and released, under the erroneous title "Lama Rama Ding Dong," in 1958. It did not become popular until 1961, after a disc jockey in New York City began to play it as a segue from the Marcels' doo-wop version of "Blue Moon." (wikipedia)

         

• • •

Hi hi, everyone. Amy Nelson here, another first-time Rexword contributor, and I'm excited to be filling in today. 

Solving this puzzle was an emphatically fine experience. An okay time was had by all. Throughout, the grid largely contained what felt to me like fresh fill, relatively speaking (if nothing else, LIESL got another day off, bless her heart). There was also minimal crosswordese to tangle with. But, at the same time, I wouldn't so much call this a particularly entertaining puzzle. And Byron Walden's previous NYT puzzles have, in my experience, been generally delightful solving events (if at times maddeningly challenging), so my expectations were perhaps unfairly high. That said, I'll go ahead and call in some of the hard PASSes I had to dole out in this one.

First off, DESK PERSON??? I just... I can't with it. Nor do I want to with it. DESK PERSON is the kind of fill that seems to have been designed specifically to torpedo an otherwise potentially lively puzzle. The cluing PRETTY straightforwardly signaled (in what for me didn't read in a very buzzy way) that the answer was going to be a job involving, well, something other than standing. (I initially just wrote "sitting" but I guess there are also jobs where you're, like, lying down... a lot? Like... a mechanic? Is there such a thing as a professional sleeper? That would be a great job. I would like to be that when I grow up please.) But really, DESK PERSON? I could honestly rant about this one answer for my entire post, but y'all get it. I don't want to become a one-note BORE straight out of the gate.

Other "nope" moments for me included THE NFL (get out of my crossword if you're already taking up this much real estate in my daily news pls & thx), JUICE BAR (just... blah), and BUBBA, or, more specifically, the arguably stale (and a lot less lighthearted in the #MeToo era) cluing for BUBBA [27A: Nickname for Bill Clinton]. Vanderpump Rules watchers, assemble! (IYKYK.)

It would also, I think, offend exactly no one if the NYT would just give SSN and OLE a rest already, even if only a temporary one. I know, I know, pigs sooner flying, etc. I can at least appreciate the unexpected cluing for OLE [44A: "Still the Same ___ Me" (George Jones album)] this time around. But E-TAIL can fully go ahead and get laid out on a pyre and be set on fire and pushed out to sea and maybe it'll eventually be like it was never even here.

High points, and there were a few, included JUMP FOR JOY [5A: Jubilate] (clue-into-answer alliteration? and with J's, no less? *chef's kiss*) and PÈRE [25A: ___ Noël], but the Christmas season is one of my favorite things in life, so maybe I'm biased. I also really liked the clever cluing for MEDIUMS [7D: Dead ringers?] and FALL ISSUE [37A: It's bound to run in the third quarter]. (Full disclosure: I 100% spent the bulk of today's solving time forgetting that baseball doesn't do "quarters" and consequently trying to come up with the name of whatever baseball position it would be that would, idk, be doing this running at this part of the baseball game?).

This particular Père Noël is decidedly *not* a high point.

Additionally, with IUD seemingly have been made to shoulder the entire [26A: Form of birth control] cluing brunt for *checks watch* ever, VASECTOMY shows up here as both flashier, more interesting fill as well as an example of topical fill that isn't a) so blandly on the nose, like THE NFL, or b) connotative of something especially, as Rex put it on Thursday in reference to TASE, violently off-putting.

Yet even with the occasional amusements interspersed throughout the grid, it felt like the puzzle as a whole was sort of weighed down by a larger proportion of insipid answers and/or cluing. In my opinion, the down answers suffered more from this than the across ones did, as when the lineup of two-word down answers in the NE corner (JUICE BAR OSCAR BID YES DEAR) spilled over into the SW corner (CHAT LINE LEFT ENDS) before essentially petering out into similarly unremarkable shorter fill (TROOPED BATTENS FULLER). I mean, regardless of whether or not it lands for you personally, at least BIDENOMICS has unfamiliarity/newness working for it. 

On the other hand, ENDOWMENTS will likely never be the thing that successfully elevates a puzzle, and PUTS ON HOLD isn't bringing much to the [43A: Tables] either. Elsewhere, instances of more compelling fill (SHE BOP SONORA, for example) are, to some extent, diminished, whether it be by irksome parallel answers, like ULTRAS, or by crosses with a watering-down effect, like BORE ORAL PASS. These occurrences of, for lack of a better way of describing it, canceling-out exacerbate this puzzle's kind of global "meh" quality, resulting in the shining bits of fill being too often overshadowed.

To wrap up, I'd say that this week's Saturday issue was somewhat easier than others we've seen in recent weeks. However, there were some answers that I was only able to get because I knew enough of the crossing fill (GUSTAV, ROLLO, DEL SARTO, BOK). Unsurprisingly, all are names; indeed, all are names that, with the exception of DEL SARTO, could have been clued in more engaging ways. Why you'd forgo the chance to involve a Viking in your puzzle is, frankly, a question I don't care to know the answer to.

This is... one of the stranger music videos I've seen in a while? If you have ~5 minutes, I'd definitely recommend giving it a watch. And if you've got an hour to spare, you can watch it twelve times.

Variety acts:

• 29A: Make sound (REPAIR) — Not, in fact, as in: (transitive) "make" [an] "audible sound." Yeah... idk, -PEAL ended up as guess fill early on for some reason after I inexplicably ran with this incorrect interpretation of the clue, and it took ages to identify it as the root of that problem area.
• 36A: A whole bunch (RAFTS) — I was today years old when I first heard about this meaning of this word. Is that just by random chance? Or has every other person encountered this sense of "raft" before? (In my defense, until last year, I'd spent the better part of the past decade as a medieval lit grad student. And the OED clocks this meaning of "raft" as entering the language in the 1820s, i.e., basically at least four centuries too late for me to have been able to notice it. Yep. Sticking to that excuse.)
• 10D: Excited reaction at trivia night (OH OH) — I'm sorry, but two disembodied OHs do not an excited reaction make. This answer seems to be popping up frequently-ish lately, clued in various iterations, though perhaps most commonly in a classroom, "call on me" type context. Which, actually, at least makes sense, whereas I've never been to a trivia night that entailed having to be called on in order to answer.

Signed, Amy (writing from the hotel room I moved into after the first hotel room was already occupied by ants, a SITCH that did not seem to faze the front DESK PERSON like, at all, which of course isn't worrisome in the least)

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Vulcan's specialty / SAT 4-24-21 / Co-star of Apple TV+'s "The Morning Show" / Journalist Parker with a 2018 Pulitzer Prize / Lambert airport inits.

Constructor: Kristian House and Mike Dockins

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: None

Word of the Day: PARKER (Journalist Parker with a 2018 Pulitzer Prize) —

Ashley R. Parker^[1] is an American journalist, a Pulitzer Prize-winning White House reporter for The Washington Post, and senior political analyst for MSNBC. From 2011 to 2017 she was a Washington-based^[2] politics reporter^[3] for The New York Times.

• • •

Hi all, Rachel Fabi in for Rex Parker today (and for the early readers, apologies that this is late! That's on me! And because I'm running late, you're getting a Fabi-style writeup instead of a Fabi-imitating-Parker-style writeup-- this format may be familiar to readers of my New Yorker write-ups on Diary of a Crossword Fiend).  I solved this one in a bit of a panic since I knew I was late, so I'm not sure I can give an accurate assessment of its difficulty, but I finished it just slightly above my average time. Whether that's due to the puzzle being slightly more difficult than average or my frantic solve making it harder to see things I otherwise might have seen is unclear. But despite the state in which I solved this puzzle, I still really like it! It's got a cool grid, and some excellent long entries, and a bunch of clues that I really enjoyed. There's some fill I could live without scattered around the puzzle, but in general, I think this is a very solid Saturday offering.

First of all, that grid shape! I love grid designs with long lines of blocks through the the middle, and this one is no exception. I don't really know what else to say about that, other than that I think it looks rad and facilitates a sort of unique way of moving through the grid during the solve. 

The long entries I particularly enjoyed were HARRY STYLES / LADY FRIENDS / POINT OF VIEW / and KRIS KRINGLE. Although HARRY STYLES was clued surprisingly straightforwardly (there's so much you can do with that name, so it seems a wasted opportunity to settle for [19A: Singer who rose to fame on "The X Factor"]!), the other three have either fun or particularly tricky clues that I enjoyed. The clue on LADY FRIENDS in particular [9D: Some boos] likely tripped up some solvers who are unfamiliar with the term "boo" as a modern pet name for one's partner. The POINT OF VIEW clue was also tricky, being one of those one word clues [52A: Take] that could mean just about anything. And [22D: Stocking stuffer] for KRIS KRINGLE is fun because it's just adjacent to what we normally think [Stocking stuffer] means -- this is the guy who *literally* stuffs the stockings. 

Long entries aside, there were a few other clue/entry pairs in this puzzle that made me smile, and one that literally made me laugh out loud for the dad-joke of it all. The dad joke clue [39A: Sticky food?] for KABOB is cute and clever, and I adore it. I also really liked [49A: Coverage of the royal family?] for TIARA, [20D: Real posers?] for YOGIS, and [30D: "Cry me a river!" elicitor, perhaps] for SOB STORY. I got extremely tripped up on [34D: When?] as the clue for NOT IF. Once it clicked, though, I was pretty satisfied by that little bit of wordplay (because the entry fills in the implied blank [___ but when]). 

 

A few more things:

• 58A: Yeah, right: I wrote over the first four letters of I'M SO SURE, like, four times. I tried YEAH SURE, SURE SURE, and WELL SURE before finally landing on the correct set. I guess I was not so sure! 
• 62A: "___ a Pizza" (punnily titled children's book) -- I vaguely remember my little brother reading and enjoying "PETE'S a Pizza" and I like that punny title, so I will forgive the otherwise pet peeve of mine of having what looks like a plural name in the grid. Much better clue than just naming two random PETES!
• Fill I could live without: HRS, ALLI, NITTI (are we supposed to know mafia gangster henchmen by name??)

Well folks, that's all the time we have for today, because it is ACPT weekend and I need to go mentally prepare. Apologies again for the late post-- blame me, not Rex! 

Signed, Rachel Fabi, Queen-for-a-Day of CrossWorld

[Follow Rachel on Twitter]  

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

PS. Thank you to everyone who contributed to These Puzzles Fund Abortion! I know many of you did, and I really appreciate it. We've raised $32,000 so far (!!!), which is just unbelievable. If you still want to pick up a copy of the puzzle pack I edited to benefit the Baltimore Abortion Fund, you can do so here!
 

PPS. Even if you are not attending the ACPT today, you can pick up some independent puzzles from the "Virtual ACPT Puzzle Table" that Nate Cardin and I coordinated for constructors to show off their work this weekend. Those puzzles are available here (and includes one free BAF puzzle!). 
 

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Intestinal neighbors of jejuna and ceca / SAT 7-25-20 / One of fourteen holy helpers in Roman Catholicism / L in Broadway monogram LMM / Introducer of math symbol e / Pigs jocularly / Retailer that hired its first openly transgender model in 2019

Constructor: Royce Ferguson

Relative difficulty: Easy? I was not speeding and got up in the middle to do something, so I don't know...

THEME: none

Word of the Day: ST. VITUS (9D: One of the Fourteen Holy Helpers in Roman Catholicism) —

Vitus (/ˈvaɪtəs/), according to Christian legend, was a Christian saint from Sicily. He died as a martyr during the persecution of Christians by co-ruling Roman Emperors Diocletianand Maximian in 303. Vitus is counted as one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers of medieval Roman Catholicism. Saint Vitus' Day is celebrated on 15 June. In places where the Julian Calendar is used, this date coincides, in the 20th and 21st centuries, with 28 June on the Gregorian Calendar.

In the late Middle Ages, people in Germany celebrated the feast of Vitus by dancing before his statue. This dancing became popular and the name "Saint Vitus Dance" was given to the neurological disorder Sydenham's chorea. It also led to Vitus being considered the patron saint of dancers and of entertainers in general. (wikipedia)

• • •

This one lost me at "intestinal neighbors" and never got me back. Triple stacks on their own just aren't enough to hold my interest, and none of the long answers had any kind of currency or spark or vitality or novelty or anything. Puzzle felt like it was made in the 20th century and then someone got to it last week and added a few current / updated clues, but still ... no one's going to write home about CLOSED-BOOK TESTS or LEARN ONE'S LESSON. And the fill really suffers in places. Lots of short fill yesterday, but most of it held up; today, it fell apart a little bit more. I have the word "Yuck" written across the top of my grid *five* times. Now with ROD I was only mad at the clue (without "fishing" in front of it, ROD is horrible as an answer to [Bit of lakeside equipment]), and with AGNI I was mad because every time I've seen it in the past it's been a crosswordese Latin plural, so I instinctively recoiled, but ... it's a real-ass god, and not exactly a super-minor figure (like, say ST. VITUS—who?), so maybe I'll have to learn to at least tolerate the Hindu god AGNI. But I do not have to tolerate ILEA (yuck all around) or ENES, and SHE doesn't have a slash in it—see: SHE sells seashells down by the seashore. No slash. It *can* have a slash in it, I guess, though no one does that any more (singular "they" has triumphed). Because of all the yuck short fill and associated clues, and because none of the long answers gave a proper payoff when they came into view, the puzzle felt disappointing, and sadly nothing going on in the middle or bottom of the grid did much to change that.

AGNI clues of the Shortz era

I kept getting stalled on awkward pseudo-things like UNEDGED and TIE-WRAP. Remembered crosswordese COATI but half-forgot crosswordese ALTAI. Guessed right on crosswordese TOILE (TULLE is the tutu material, TUILE is ... a cookie, I think, and TOILE is upholstery). I don't accept that "L.M.M." is a "Broadway monogram"—I know who you're talking about, I saw "Hamilton" (and not on Disney+), but that "monogram" has not gotten beyond hardcore fandom, I don't think. At least today the ANO clue told you that you really do need the tilde. But it's still ANO, so pfft. Ugh to the Greek letter gimmick whereby XXX = CHIS. And ugh to -ARY. "IT'S HERE!" has a certain energy I like, but multiple KEATONS and multiple BONSAIS and too many other things just get me down. I was proud of how many of my first guesses on the short stuff were correct. VAST ILIA (misspelled, but still, close) SHE EEL RIPA ENES TESS INCA PELE and DEE, all correct. Oh, and INEXILE, boom, no crosses, nailed it (7D: Like the Dalai Lama since 1959). Of course all of this speed was offset by my total inability to see SEALED ENVELOPES (I had CLASS- at the beginning of 12D: Things for which you must memorize information and that Really hurt). [Know for the future] doesn't capture LEARN ONE'S LESSON at all. There's nothing that hints at the f***ing up you have to do in order to LEARN ONE'S LESSON. [Know for the future] just sounds like info you store away. No context. No sense of learning *the hard way*. I'm reminded all the time of how much better many of these puzzles would be with a more careful (and current) editorial voice. Oh well.


Mistakes? Hmm. ALL for ONE, ILIA for ILEA (again just awful), OAR for ROD. I think that's it. Not many at all. Many thanks to crossword stalwarts EULER and NAST and RIPA for easing my path through this thing.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

PS hey if you want to do a Beautiful (if very easy) themeless today, you should check out Caitlin Reid's latest New Yorker puzzle, which is lovely

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Bookmaking frame that produces paper with rough edges / SAT 7-4-20 / Bush campaign manager of 1988 / Subject of 1927 royal charter / Martial art with rhyming syllables / Satirical website once owned by The Onion

Constructor: Peter Wentz

Relative difficulty: Medium (8:04)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: WUSHU (51A: Martial art with rhyming syllables) —

Wushu (/ˌwuːˈʃuː/), or Chinese Kungfu, is a hard and soft and complete martial art, as well as a full-contact sport. It has a long history in reference to Chinese martial arts. It was developed in 1949 in an effort to standardize the practice of traditional Chinese martial arts, yet attempts to structure the various decentralized martial arts traditions date back earlier, when the Central Guoshu Institute was established at Nanking in 1928.

"Wushu" is the Chinese term for "martial arts" (武 "Wu" = military or martial, 術 "Shu" = art). In contemporary times, Wushu has become an international sport through the International Wushu Federation (IWUF), which holds the World Wushu Championships every two years; the first World Championships were held in 1991 in Beijing. The World KungfuChampionships are held every four years subset International Wushu Federation, as well. (wikipedia)

• • •

This was pretty joyless, which surprised me, as I usually groove on Peter Wentz puzzles. A few key answers felt obscure or just off, and much of the difficulty felt highly contrived, e.g. calling END OF DAYS a "setting" or calling BYLAWS "lines of code." Like, yes, I see what you're doing there, but meh. Trying hard to see what the marquee answers were supposed to be in this one. Maybe P.F. CHANG'S or CLICKHOLE? Those are at least current and freshish. The rest of the longer stuff was ... well, stuffy. Too much of this grid either clunked or just felt flat. It's AHOY, MATE*Y*, for starters (57A: Call overseas?). RAPS as a noun always feels verrrrrrrry NYT, i.e. very "hello, fellow youths!" i.e. like someone who doesn't listen to rap pretending he does. Much better as a verb, especially when talking about whole-ass songs ("chart-toppers"). The grid was very very namey too, which I guess I should be happy about, since I knew most of them, but ... nah, I wasn't happy about it. And what is ROCK-RIBBED (?), who says that? And FIVE-WAY??? Really? (8D: Like some complex intersections) That answer was easy enough to get, but ... not really believable as a thing. Possibly more believable as a sex thing than as an intersection thing, frankly. The only thing I actually enjoyed today was getting "LA STRADA" (38D: Fellini's first Oscar-winning film). I'm overstating how unpleasant this one largely because my expectations from the byline were so high. I wonder how much of any given puzzle's unpleasantness is actually editorial. I've said this before, but I think it's the overall "voice" of the puzzle that often leaves me cold, and that is very much an editor thing.


Most of my trouble came early, when I couldn't get the NW corner to work—holy crap, DECKLE!?! (1A: Bookmaking frame that produces paper with rough edges). I get it that you want to be the first to put some niche word in the grid, but oof, yipes, and all the YEOWS (plural, really?). DECKLE?! Wow. OK. I learned a word (that I will forget immediately). I think I would've resented this obscurity much less if it hadn't been 1-Across, an answer that matters very much even if you think it shouldn't. It can be hard or easy, but it shouldn't, when I finally get it, leave me going "....... what?" and disbelieving every single cross. Only other memorable trouble I had was at WUSHU, which ... is weirdly the name for all Chinese martial arts and somehow (more recently) the name of a specific, standardized martial art. Anyway, I figured the answer would be some martial art I had never heard of. But then it was this, which I know about vaguely, but only as a synonym for kung fu (i.e. Chinese martial arts generally). Weird how a five-letter answer can cause so much trouble. The clue was probably necessary to keep people from guessing ARIEL at 52D: Archangel of the Apocrypha (URIEL). Didn't know BIANCA, but the name was easy to piece together from crosses. Worst name in the puzzle by far (which I got easily, because I lived through his racist bullshit) is ATWATER (40D: Bush campaign manager of 1988). Really, really not the name you want to be floating across your grid in the summer of the year of our lord 2020. Just an asshole of the first order. Southern strategy guy. Willie Horton guy. F*** him and the party he helped steer toward the cruel racist disaster you see around you today. Homophobia: check. Smear campaigns based on stigmatizing mental illness: check check. Here, read more about this awful human being for yourself. Or don't. Black lives matter. Good night.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Italian playwright who won 1997 Nobel Prize in Literature / SAT 6-27-20 / Theatergoer's reproof / Miss Beadle of Little House on Prairie / He's waiting in sky in classic David Bowie song / Republic of theocratic setting of Handmaid's Tale / Baker's Joy alternative

Constructor: Ryan Mccarty

Relative difficulty: Easy (except for SE corner, which destroyed me) (90% done in about 4 minutes ... 3+ minutes to get the rest)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: DARIO [space] FO (32D: Italian playwright who won the 1997 Nobel Prize in Literature) —

Dario Luigi Angelo Fo (Italian pronunciation: [ˈdaːrjo ˈfɔ]; 24 March 1926 – 13 October 2016) was an Italian actor, playwright, comedian, singer, theatre director, stage designer, songwriter, painter, political campaigner for the Italian left wing and the recipient of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Literature. In his time he was "arguably the most widely performed contemporary playwright in world theatre". Much of his dramatic work depends on improvisation and comprises the recovery of "illegitimate" forms of theatre, such as those performed by giullari (medieval strolling players) and, more famously, the ancient Italian style of commedia dell'arte. (wikipedia)

• • •

Oof. This makes a good contrast to yesterday's puzzle. Yesterday: bouncy fun. Today: easy boringness, followed by grueling proper name fiasco. I remember nothing about this puzzle except DARIOFO (whom I am meeting today for the first time) and almost every answer crossing it. It's so bizarre that you would make / edit a puzzle to come out this way—to have this lone not-well-known proper noun sitting there, when the rest of your grid is so easy, so straightforward. DARIOFO is the sorest of sore thumbs. Literally none of the letters were inferrable. Until I looked him up (after I was done), I didn't even know it was a first *and* a last name. I thought it was just one name, a last name, possibly with an apostrophe in it, like D'ARIOFO! I'm sure he was someone, but wow, nope, no idea. It's entirely possible I've come across his name before, but not in any context where it would've stuck. What is his major work? No idea. Looks like he was a 9/11 Truther, so that's fun. Sigh. A name like that ... look, I don't know lots of names. I have no idea who this EVERETT person is (41A: Betty who sang "The Shoop Shoop Song (It's in His Kiss)"), but I plunked EVERETT down pretty readily once I had a few of the (consonant) crosses, because EVERETT Is A Name That I Can Recognize As A Name. If DARIOFO had been a single reasonably common Italian last name, I could've done same. But no. D'ARIOFO! So MAGE was MUSE and DOURER was, ugh, DOWNER, maybe (39A: More morose), and YORK was nothing because after ERIE I have no idea about 4-letter Pennsylvania counties (52A: Pennsylvania county or its seat).


I had MUSCLY but kept doubting MUSCLY because nothing else would work (36D: Jacked). Oh, AGENDER I know, but I kept wanting ASEXUAL and ... I just couldn't get any help from the crosses. Could not get the CODE part of HONOR CODE (had ROLL, then ... no idea) (45A: What has a large following on a college campus?). How would the clue writer know how "large" a following an HONOR CODE has. Do most colleges actually have them? I mean, there are rules about cheating. Looks like my university has an "Honesty Code" buried in the University Bulletin under "Academic Policies and Procedures." If you hadn't decided to get all cute and "?"-ish with the clue, maybe, but dumb / off clue = ??? Also, I figure most college students have broken some form of the academic honesty rules at least once, if they're being honest.


"EEK!" has literally nothing to do with "OMG!," so that was rough. You know what an audible "OMG!" is? It's "OMG!" I mean, You Put It In Quotation Marks!!!! That Means Someone's Saying It! Yeesh. Like I said, I don't get why you make your puzzle so lop-sidedly difficult like this. Not like I was gonna remember the rest of the grid anyway, since it was bland (esp. compared to yesterday's gem), but still, this dumb SE corner pretty much ensures that I'm only gonna remember this one little corner. I mean, what else is there? AAACELL?? AAAh no. OSMOSED?? Mosed-efinitely not. BAVERAGE?? I'm thirsty, I'd lack a BAVARAGE, playse! Pffft. Nothing here. I SEE SLOGS. Good night.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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1949 novel set in Wyoming Territory / SAT 6-20-20 / Sicilian town that lost bell to Fascists in literature / 1960 Miles Davis album inspired in part by flamenco music / Broadway character who sings God loves Nubia / Bird that lent its name to Toledo's Triple-A team / Danity girl group with self-titled 2006 #1 album

Constructor: Stella Zawistowski

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (6:49)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: Danity KANE (34D: Danity ___, girl group with a self-titled 2006 #1 album) —

Danity Kane is an American girl group composed of members Aubrey O'Day, Dawn Richard, and Shannon Bex. The group originally had five members, but Wanita "D. Woods" Woodgett left the group in 2008, and Aundrea Fimbres left in 2014. Formed on the third iteration of MTV's Making the Band reality television series in 2005, they signed to Bad Boy Records by Diddy.

Danity Kane's self-titled debut studio album was released in 2006 and achieved success in the United States, shipping a million copies domestically, while spawning two singles with top 10 single "Show Stopper" and the ballad "Ride for You." Their second studio album, Welcome to the Dollhouse, was released in 2008, following the release of their second top 10 single "Damaged". The band became the first female group in Billboard history to debut their first two albums at the top of the charts. (wikipedia)

• • •

I was braced for a hard one, as that is what Stella's name means to me, but then the hardness didn't really come. I was slower than I should've been, probably, because I tend to slow down and move methodically through puzzles that are terrors. I could've turned on the gas here and didn't, is what I'm saying. And I still came in under 7 on a Saturday, which is to say I came in with a roughly normal *Friday* time. And I liked it. I like Friday puzzles. I like spending 6-8 minutes on a puzzle filled with  interesting longer answers and some thoughtfully tough clues. And so I liked this. The only part that made me even a little mad was the KANE / KAYE krossing—two proper names of not tremendous fame, crossing at a vowel ... that's dicey. But in the end (the very end, actually), the "A" was the only reasonable guess. Everything else about this grid seems very much in order. Oh, ADANO is icky crosswordese (8D: Sicilian town that lost a bell to Fascists, in literature), but that's such a minor thing, really, in the face of so much good. Love the central Across ("SKETCHES OF SPAIN"), though I initially forgot about its existence (despite *owning it*) (33A: 1960 Miles Davis album inspired in part by flamenco music). Having the -TCHES part in place, I really really wanted to make "BITCHES BREW" happen, but ... way too many squares. Also love ALL-NIGHTER and HAPPY PLACE, and METEORIC and "MANEATER"—make it fun, it's all I ask. Oh, and make it smooth. This was both.

["Lean and hungry type," in a Hall & Oates hit]

I knew "Golden Girls" was set in Florida but couldn't decide TAMPA or MIAMI so I let the crosses tell me (1A: Setting for "The Golden Girls"). I know "SHANE" very well as a movie (Alan Ladd! And my girlfriend Jean Arthur!), but I was not aware it was a novel, so that was embarrassingish (18A: 1949 novel set in the Wyoming Territory). I literally cried "SHANE" earlier today, in the voice of my cat, as my wife left the house and my cat put his paws up on the screen door and looked longingly after her. Had EL NIÑO before LA NIÑA, but of course I did (19A: Pacific Ocean phenomenon). I forgot Uno had a SKIP card and do not think of my PECs as near my abs, so yeah, that whole western section was rough for me. Luckily, it was also small. PTRAP sounds like a kind of music, and I needed many crosses to get it (40A: Plumbing fitting with a bend). Is ADD-A-LINE hyphenated? (58A: Cellphone account offering). I would think an additional or extra line would be the "offering." Somehow having a verb phrase as an "offering" felt weird, unless the answer is not a noun but a phrase of offering, i.e. "Say, would you like to ADD A LINE." Yeah, OK. Still feels weird, but OK. Was baffled by the clue on DECORS (59A: Looks inside?) until I got every last letter from crosses. Then I wasn't baffled, but by then not being baffled didn't really do me any good. My baker makes a great TRES Leches cake, which I am definitely buying (again) tomorrow (53D: ___ leches). Sweet dreams for me. Good night.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Bygone Buick / SAT 6-13-20 / Classic bit of groanworthy wordplay / Hyperbolic figure / Supposed sightings off coast of Norway / Annual e-sports competition since 1996 / Motor contests with portmanteau name / Opera with noted triumphal march

Constructor: Trenton Charlson

Relative difficulty: Medium (8-ish)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: XIANGQI (39D: So-called "Chinese chess") —

Xiangqi (Chinese: 象棋; pinyin: xiàngqí; English: /ˈʃɑːŋtʃi/), also called Chinese chess, is a strategy board game for two players. It is one of the most popular board games in China, and is in the same family as Western (or international) chess, chaturanga, shogi, Indian chess and janggi. Besides China and areas with significant ethnic Chinese communities, xiangqi is also a popular pastime in Vietnam, where it is known as cờ tướng.

The game represents a battle between two armies, with the object of capturing the enemy's general (king). Distinctive features of xiangqi include the cannon (pao), which must jump to capture; a rule prohibiting the generals from facing each other directly; areas on the board called the river and palace, which restrict the movement of some pieces (but enhance that of others); and placement of the pieces on the intersections of the board lines, rather than within the squares. (wikipedia)

• • •

Did CAVEMEN make this? Like, nerdy CAVEMEN who are way too into games and puns and Scrabbly letters and who seem completely unaware of the existence of women? This was a dude puzzle for dudes filled with dude things and absolutely no references to women unless you wanna go ahead and count a fictional female rabbit as a woman. UNREAL. Oh, sorry, I overlooked also-fictional MEG. She's just three letters and all tucked away down there. Anyway ... I see that you are really into Scrabbly letters and groanworthy wordplay and some e-sports thing ... I'm just gonna go ... stand over here now, thanks, bye. The whole vibe on this just wasn't for me. Not badly constructed, just kind of blah and without any real sparkle or breadth of cultural reference (beyond the Chinese chess thing). I didn't have too much trouble with it except in the west in general, and the southwest in particular. Really resented EXFBI, which feels very much not a thing (38A: Like some private eyes). I read a lot (Lot) of private eye novels; I have taught courses in crime fiction at the undergraduate and graduate level. I am sure that some actual, and maybe some fictional, private eyes used to be in the FBI, but I reject that as a *definitive* thing, and I kinda reject the very "word" EXFBI. Getting that off the -BI was probably the hardest thing about the puzzle, especially since that "I" came on the horrid crosswordese Saw sequel SAWII, which I thought ... maybe was SAWIV (I *saw* none of them). Not knowing a single letter of XIANGQI was probably the thing that slowed me most in that corner, but the thing that annoyed me most was damn sure EXFBI. That, and my stupid failure to spell ELYSIAN correctly on the first try (ELESIAN!? What was I thinking?) (38D: Heavenly).


Weird experience up top to start, where I had LION over ACRE over WEGO and absolutely no idea what the first three letters of *any* of those answers was. Wrote in HELLION (!) at one point for 1A: Hyperbolic figure (ZILLION). Somehow thought there could be a TWO-ACRE lot; wasn't sure from the "?" clue if an adj. or noun was called for (15A: Quite a lot?). Wanted only "HERE WE GO!" for 17A: "And so it begins!" ("OFF WE GO!"). Didn't get any of that stuff until late, when I finally figured out TOM SWIFTY (the very name made me ugh) and worked my way up (32A: Classic bit of groanworthy wordplay). Had "BE REAL" before "UNREAL" (28A: "No way!"). In other parts of the grid, I had no idea what a XEROPHYTE was (8D: Plant suited to an arid environment), so was heavily reliant on crosses. Wanted ODDBALL before ODDDUCK (13D: Weird type). ROADEOS is a superdumb thing I don't believe is real any more than I believe ROLEOS are real and so that answer can get bent (14D: Motor contests with a portmanteau name). Couldn't be less interested in "e-sports competition"s if I tried, and EVO is evo-cative of precisely nothing, so that was unpleasant. And I just could not wrap my brain around the phrasing of the clue at 33D: Accelerate in the process (FAST TRACK). It was the "in" ... I couldn't make it work. I think the clue actually probably works better as just [Accelerate]. The prepositional phrase just makes it clunky and awkward.


OK, on to Sunday.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Folklore character whose stockings are tied with eyelashes / Ex video game franchise / Lane on eastern boundary of Covent Garden / Language introduced in 1995 / SAT 6-6-20 / Perp's mark in cop slang / Scene of W.W. I fighting

Constructor: Doug Peterson

Relative difficulty: Challenging (slowest in months)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: N'DJAMENA (1A: Capital of Chad) —

N’Djamena (/əndʒɑːˈmeɪnɑː/; French: N'Djaména, pronounced [n(ə)dʒa.me.na]; Arabic: انجمينا‎ Injamīnā) is the capital and largest city of Chad. A port on the Chari River, near the confluence with the Logone River, it directly faces the Camerooniantown of Kousséri, to which the city is connected by a bridge. It is also a special statute region, divided into 10 districts or arrondissements. It is a regional market for livestock, salt, dates, and grains. Meat, fish and cotton processing are the chief industries, and the city continues to serve as the center of economic activity in Chad.

• • •

Well I was wrong. Thought I would finish today's faster than yesterday's, but this too was just brutal for me. Slowest Saturday (which means slowest puzzle, period) in recent memory. It was also just not a very exciting grid, as Doug Peterson puzzles go (bar is high). It's quite solid, but there's not much shine, and there's ... well, I just can't get very excited about AMBUSH PREDATORS as a marquee answer (8D: Leopards and anacondas, e.g.). I did not know that was a thing. For me it was just [random adjective] PREDATORS, and it took me forever to see AMBUSH, and then when I got it, no "aha," just a "... really? that's a thing?" I had a similar adj. + noun issue with SKIN DIVERS (13D: Key explorers). Got DIVERS then thought, "well, that could be anything," and it could. I wanted REEF, I think. I don't know why MARIA CALLAS is "Tony" (43A: Tony soprano?) (except that she sings notes, like any soprano, and notes are ... tones? I get that you want a TV character pun there in your clue, but ...).


The biggest issue / downer for me, though, was 1A: Capital of Chad (N'DJAMENA). At 1-Across, that is such a f***-you kind of answer. People who have been on "Jeopardy" and trivia nerds who memorize world capitals will know it, and everyone else won't (I was a "won't"), which is it breaks hard into two very very very different camps: Absolute Gimme or Absolutely No Idea. And what's more, if you have no idea, it's not a city you have any chance of spelling in any kind of inferential way. All random letters if you don't know the answer. So the whole NW becomes torture. Throw in my having no idea re: another name (DEUS) (20A: ___ Ex (video game franchise)) and another name (SARA) (35D: Shepard who wrote "Pretty Little Liars") and having even names I did know buried in clues that were either vague (FRED SANFORD) (23A: '70s sitcom title role) or inscrutable to me (TOM THUMB) (17A: Folklore character whose stockings are tied with eyelashes), and wow was this thing a struggle. And not a fun one. Too reliant on proper names to be truly enjoyable. The top half was twice as hard as the bottom half. The last letter I put in was the "1" square, a thing that virtually never happens. Had -OTE and still had to think for a bit about what letter could complete it (1D: Mark down). Looking it over now, there's just So Many Names. Great when you know 'em ("LOVIN' You"!) not so great when you don't, esp. when you're cluing everything as hard as possible.


Clue on EXUDED just didn't make sense to me (6D: Couldn't contain). You can contain things you exude. Why not? The ability of one to contain or not contain something seems to me to have nothing to do with exuding. Awful. I had EMO before ALT (4D: Music genre prefix). REDS and GEMS before (ugh, that's all) HUES (28A: Ruby and sapphire). APES before AXES (38A: Forest swingers). Knew Elizabeth CADY Stanton but thought she was a CATY, I really really did. Man, who is the CATY that I know? Do I even know a CATY??? I must not. SALAD was also ridiculously hard (26A: Bar assembly). But in general, this was two puzzles: the bottom (pretty normal Saturday) and the top (torture). Really really don't like VIC right now (29A: Perp's mark, in cop slang); you can really bury all "cop slang" for a long, long time, and I would not mind. Thanks.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

PS Zoe Caldwell won a Tony (!?!?!) for *playing* MARIA CALLAS in "Master Class," but if that is the reference in today's clue, that is some snotty inside-baseball bull***t. Your "?" clues should not require a paragraph of footnotes. Their aptness should announce itself at once, bam.

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