Mythological instruments of vengeance / WED 5-21-25 / Something feigned by Ferris Bueller to get out of school / Word with chocolate or computer / Biblical birthright barterer / Ectoplasmic residue

Constructor: Ilana Levene and Scott Hogan

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: direct address — familiar two-word phrases are clued as if the second word is a familiar term of address: 

Theme answers:

• "CHEESE, DOG!" (17A: "Smile for the photo, dude!")
• "DELIVERY, MAN!" (24A: "Work on your enunciation, bro!")
• "TWISTED, SISTER!" (33A: "That is messed up, girl!")
• "BLOCK, BUSTER!" (49A: "Protect the quarterback, buddy!")
• "WILD, HONEY!" (57A: "That's unbelievable, love!")

Word of the Day: Tin lizzie (6D: Tin lizzie = MODEL T) —

The Ford Model T is an automobile that was produced by the Ford Motor Company from October 1, 1908, to May 26, 1927. It is generally regarded as the first mass-affordable automobile, which made car travel available to middle-class Americans. The relatively low price was partly the result of Ford's efficient fabrication, including assembly line production instead of individual handcrafting. The savings from mass production allowed the price to decline from $780 in 1910 (equivalent to $26,322 in 2024) to $290 in 1924 ($5,321 in 2024 dollars). It was mainly designed by three engineers, Joseph A. Galamb (the main engineer), Eugene Farkas, and Childe Harold Wills. The Model T was colloquially known as the "Tin Lizzie".

The Ford Model T was named the most influential car of the 20th century in the 1999 Car of the Century competition, ahead of the BMC Mini, Citroën DS, and Volkswagen Beetle. Ford's Model T was successful not only because it provided inexpensive transportation on a massive scale, but also because the car signified innovation for the rising middle class and became a powerful symbol of the United States' age of modernization. With over 15 million sold, it was the most sold car in history before being surpassed by the Volkswagen Beetle in 1972. (wikipedia)

A 1922 Car Race 

In the early 1900s, car dealers would try to create publicity for their new automobiles by hosting car races. In 1922 a championship race was held in Pikes Peak, Colorado. Entered as one of the contestants was Noel Bullock and his Model T, named "Old Liz."

Since Old Liz looked the worse for wear, as it was unpainted and lacked a hood, many spectators compared Old Liz to a tin can. By the start of the race, the car had the new nickname of "Tin Lizzie."

But to everyone's surprise, Tin Lizzie won the race. Having beaten even the most expensive other cars available at the time, Tin Lizzie proved both the durability and speed of the Model T.

Tin Lizzie's surprise win was reported in newspapers across the country, leading to the use of the nickname "Tin Lizzie" for all Model T cars. The car also had a couple of other nicknames—"Leaping Lena" and "flivver"—but it was the Tin Lizzie moniker that stuck. (thoughtco.com) 

• • •

This one got better as it rolled along. You really have to mentally add a bunch of words to make those first two themers work. You're asking someone (in this case, "dog") to say CHEESE. Leaving the actual instruction part out of the expression creates confusion, especially since it's the first themer anyone's likely to encounter. Even if I were being super caszh (that's casual for "casual") with my, ahem, dogs, I would probably still say the "Say" part of "SAY CHEESE." The next themer ("DELIVERY, MAN") requires you to infer a lot of words: specifically, the words "You need to work on your." These opening theme clues are doing a lot of work to make the theme phrases seem plausible. But for the next three, they all sound quite natural. Sounds totally normal to admit, for instance, the "that is" part and just say "TWISTED, SISTER" or "WILD, HONEY." And the direct command ("BLOCK, BUSTER!") is probably the most natural-sounding of the bunch. No mental supplying of words necessary. A very self-contained, clear expression. So, decent concept with halfway decent execution. Always better when the theme gets sharper / tighter / clearer as it goes on. Much better than the opposite, that's for sure.

The puzzle overall was super-easy, with an admirably clean grid. That cleanness is related to the easiness, I think. There's just not a lot of pop culture trivia or proper nouns generally, or archaic, odd, crosswords-only type words or expressions. I mean, there's ANAIS Nin and ANG Lee and EMMA Thompson / Stone, but those people are constants. There's FERMI and ESAU but you really are not being tasked much at all with retrieving names today. The straightforwardness of it all does put the grid in danger a little bit of being boring, but vivid words like SPLURGES and STOLID provide some distinction and character, and occasionally the clues come along and help out as well. The clue on SICKNESS is particularly well-handled, as it turns a bummer of a thing into a non-existent thing *and* evokes an iconic movie (well, iconic if you were an '80s teen (guilty) (34D: Something feigned by Ferris Bueller to get out of school). Also iconic to '80s teens: TWISTED SISTER:

The puzzle was a little too easy, I think. I had a stupid bad opening, playing NIH and WHA? (!?!?!) instead of CDC and "HUH?," but after that, there wasn't much slowing or pausing. Few occasions for reflection or rumination. I wasn't entirely sure about the musical tempo indication, "sostenuto" (54A: what "sostenuto" means in music). Seemed like it should've meant "sustained," and I guess it does, but somehow my brain could not quickly get from there to the simple English word LONGER. STOLID gave me a few seconds pause because I'm never quite sure I know the definition of STOLID (46D: Like a good poker face). It's like LIMPID that way, for me—seems like it should mean something other than what it does. STOLID looks like it wants to mean "SOLID" (it's just one letter shy off, after all), and it also seems like it couldn't possibly mean "emotionless" or "impassive" because STOIC already exists and why would there be two words that close in meaning *and* spelling, that's just confusing. LIMPID & STOLID should team up. Seems like together, they have pretty good range. One of them clear, open, graceful; the other—all business. A real numbers guy. Seemingly unfazed by the day-to-day hassles of the job. LIMPID & STOLID sounds like a songwriting team, or an accounting firm. "LIMPID & STOLID, L.L.C." I'd trust them.


Bullets:

• 21A: Mythological instruments of vengeance (FURIES) — "instruments" is gonna trip up a lot of people here. It tripped me up, and I teach about the FURIES on a regular basis. I just assumed the "instruments" were going to be, like, tools, or implements of some sort. Weapons, perhaps. Not anthropomorphic hell creatures. 
• 7D: Language in which "Kia ora" means "Hello" (MAORI) — the latest episode of Conan O'Brien Must Go has him going to New Zealand, where many a "Kia ora" is heard. I watched the ep with my wife (who grew up on the South Island) and she assumed it was going to make her cringe, seeing her native country caricatured and condescended to. But it's Conan, so of course it's totally absurd and almost completely formless, as he careens around the country visiting some of his podcast fans, getting into shenanigans, and not even bothering to try to give you anything like a conventional travelogue overview. There's a family living off-grid, in a repurposed shipping container, on the western side of the South Island ("there's nothing over there but sand flies"—my wife). Conan officiates a bungee-jump wedding. My favorite part was probably when Conan got pushed around by a KEA (they are mountain parrots that seem adorable, but they have no fear and will straight-up steal your lunch money—or your entire lunch). Despite not reminding me much of the NZ I know at all, the episode made me want to go back again, immediately, like tomorrow. Best place on earth.

• 12D: Try again (REHEAR) — oh, try. Like a case. OK. I have no love for REHEAR. RETRY, yes, REHEAR, ugh. But in an otherwise clean grid, I guess it's tolerable. 

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]

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German word that sounds like a number in English / SUN 8-4-24 / Wonderland bird / Place to get a pricey cab

Constructor: SCOTT HOGAN and KATIE HALE

Relative difficulty: EASY-MEDIUM

                                         

THEME: Weather, Man! — The theme answers are meteorological terms defined using silly phrases and synonyms

Word of the Day: TYSON'S (135A: ___ Corner, suburb of Washington, D.C.) —

Tysons, also known as Tysons Corner,^[5] is a census-designated place (CDP) in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States, spanning from the corner of SR 123 (Chain Bridge Road) and SR 7 (Leesburg Pike).^[6] It is part of the Washington metropolitan area and located in Northern Virginia between McLean and Vienna along the I-495.^[7][8]

Tysons is home to two super-regional shopping malls, Tysons Corner Center and Tysons Galleria, and the corporate and administrative headquarters of Alarm.com, Appian, Booz Allen Hamilton, Capital One, Freddie Mac, Gannett, Hilton Worldwide, ID.me, Intelsat, M.C. Dean, Inc., MicroStrategy, and Tegna Inc.

• • •

Hello, it's Eli again, bringing you your Sunday puzzle fix. Today's theme is what we'll call a "classic" style (which I'm using as a polite way of saying old-fashioned). Nothing wrong with that, but this specific kind of theme has never been my personal cup of tea. Let's mix up a MAI TAI (7A: Tiki bar cocktail) and jump right in. I make a very good mai tai.

Why, yes, that is homemade orgeat. Thank you for noticing. 

Like I said, the "punny definition of a common phrase" theme has never been a favorite of mine. It's fine, I'm just rarely wowed by it. Today was no exception. It wasn't a bad puzzle at all, just not for me. The answers were all legitimate weather forecast phrases (one bumped for me just a bit; see below), the clues were fun (if not really funny), and that's all there is to it. 

Theme answers:

• SHOWERS LIKELY (23A: High chance of parties celebrating a baby's arrival?)
• MOSTLY CLOUDY (42A: Like one's mental state before morning coffee?)
• HEAVY SNOW (52A: Terrible TV reception?)
• ISOLATED SPRINKLES (71A: What you might find on the counter after making ice cream sundaes?)
• WINTRY MIX (94A: Eclectic holiday party playlist?)
• MORNING FROST (103A: "The Road Not Taken" enjoyed over breakfast?)
• DAMAGING WINDS (125A: Smashing clarinets and oboes?)

Wow, that's a lot of theme. Mostly these work fine. I have a minor quibble with Isolated Sprinkles, just in that it feels like the one I haven't heard before. It seems legit, but isolated showers is what I hear more often. I get that you already have Showers Likely, but that's another one that feels more arbitrary. Neither of those really hurts the puzzle, just where my eyebrows raised a bit. I also like Mostly Cloudy, but I think of my pre-coffee mornings as more of a haze or a fog than a cloud. Clouds and coffee only takes my brain one place:

The theme density doesn't leave much room for flash in the fill. Not a lot stood out to me, good or bad. On a personal level, I have a distaste for ODEA (117D: Greek theaters) and it's singular friend "odeon." I was a theater major, I love ancient Greek theater, but for some reason this word just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Conversely, YEET (45D: Forcefully throw, in modern slang) is one of my favorite recent words. It always makes me laugh a bit. I also like that Y-AXES (80D: Lines for which x = 0) looks like "Yaxes," which makes me imagine some unread Dr. Seuss story. And hey, look! It's UDON (122D: Noodle used in shabu-shabu). I had too many crosses by the time I saw this so I wasn't able to confuse it with SOBA. But anyone who read my post yesterday will know it could have been a problem. Maybe I should post the Uma/Oprah video again, introducing Udon to Soba... nah, I'll spare you this time.

Parting thoughts:

• 1D: Sounds from a mat (OMS) — Do people actually use "om" as a mantra, or is it just a stereotype? I meditate daily, though not in a form that requires a mantra. I've just never actually witnessed this.
• 27A: Casino fixture (ATM) — Vegas tip: don't use the ATMs in the casino unless you're ok throwing even more money away on fees. Bring cash with you. I wish someone had told me this before I went to Vegas for the first time.
• 81A: ___ for Sore Eyes (punny name for an ophthalmologist's office) (SITE) — These feels like a business that would open next to Bob's Burgers. No complaints from me; I love that show.

• 5D: Title role for Fran Drescher (THE NANNY)— Something I think about a lot is that I have trouble remembering peoples' names and new information, but for some reason I still know every word to the theme song to The Nanny. Memory can be weird.

Well, now that's back in my brain. Yay. It's been a long day, and I'm not sure I have the energy to think about the puzzle anymore. Hope you all enjoyed it; enjoy your Mali Monday tomorrow!

Signed, Eli Selzer, False Dauphin of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Mathematician Noether / SUN 2-25-24 / Ancient Greek area north of Thessaly / Color-blending technique / Slathered in sauce, in restaurant-speak / Knocking onomatopoeia / Natural decorations on some bookshelves / Home of the 123-story Lotte World Tower / Sorry ass?

Constructor: Scott Hogan and Katie Hale

Relative difficulty: Very very easy

THEME: "Special Treatment" — familiar phrases imagined as health care puns :(

Theme answers:

• 22A: I visited the cardiologist, who ... DIDN'T MISS A BEAT
• 31A: I visited the dermatologist, who ... MADE A RASH DECISION
• 47A: I visited a dentist and now I ... KNOW THE DRILL
• 69A: I visited the anesthesiologist and now I've ... LOST MY TOUCH
• 89A: I visited a sleep specialist, who ... GAVE ME THE NOD
• 105A: I visited the radiologist, who ... SAW RIGHT THROUGH ME
• 120A: I visited the podiatrist and now I ... STAND CORRECTED

Word of the Day: EMMY Noether (130A: Mathematician Noether) —

Amalie Emmy Noether (US: /ˈnʌtər/, UK: /ˈnɜːtə/; German: [ˈnøːtɐ]; 23 March 1882 – 14 April 1935) was a German mathematician who made many important contributions to abstract algebra. She proved Noether's first and second theorems, which are fundamental in mathematical physics. She was described by Pavel Alexandrov, Albert Einstein, Jean Dieudonné, Hermann Weyl and Norbert Wiener as the most important woman in the history of mathematics. As one of the leading mathematicians of her time, she developed theories of rings, fields, and algebras. In physics, Noether's theorem explains the connection between symmetry and conservation laws. (wikipedia)

• • •

Wow, this is so painfully corny. Why do people keep making these? I guess because Will keeps taking them. I absolutely Do Not Get It. These long pun stories, they're a time-honored tradition, but they seem like the biggest cop-out. Just a huge non-theme. Ordinary phrases linked by only the most preposterous imagined scenarios, which turn the ordinary phrases into puns of some kind. And the puns aren't even groaners. They're either completely weak (i.e. obvious), like DIDN'T MISS A BEAT, or they are borderline inscrutable, like GAVE ME THE NOD (are we calling sleep "THE NOD" now?), or they are completely made up—nobody but nobody ever "visited the anesthesiologist." That is not a doctor that you go to. That is a doctor that attends surgeries. I've only ever seen anesthesiologists at my actual damn procedures. I never "visited the anesthesiologist." And what, just to get some numbing drugs? What the hell? That makes no kind of sense. Plus, the idea that anesthesiologists make you lose "your touch," what? You go under. That is losing a lot more than your "touch." Then there's the fact that the themers change tense, and veer back and forth between the doctor doing things and the patient doing things. It's a mess. An old-fashioned, unambitious, uninspired mess. Completely baffling. 

And there's not nearly enough longer / interesting fill to make up for the cornball theme. In fact, there's hardly any. I'm looking around for literally any answer I was happy to see, and I can't find any. "YOU GAME?" OK, yes, that's pretty good; that, I approve. That's got something. But the rest of it ... it's not bad, but at best it's just ... there. Taking up space. The theme is all there is today, and the theme ... well, if it's your cup of tea, god bless you. I envy you. I was just hurrying through this thing, grateful that it was easy (so I could be done with it quickly). 

I don't know who this JENNA is (30A: Partner of Hoda on "Today") and I had trouble remembering and then spelling Linda COHN (started with COEN) (93D: "SportsCenter" anchor Linda), but other than that the only trouble I had with this puzzle came entirely in and around the worst of the themers: GAVE ME THE NOD (again, ?!?!?!). I'm on various social medias, and I don't really know what ADD is (86D: Button on social media). I "Like" you or I "Follow" you or I "Friend" you, maybe. ADD is ... weak and generic. So it didn't occur to me. The clue on WIENERS is actually really good (66D: Pack of dogs?) (i.e. hot dogs), but it was hard, and crossed the dumb themer I couldn't get, so it made that section harder. I don't know anyone who decorates their shelves with GEODES, so that was nowhere near the front of my mind as an answer for 77A: Natural decorations on some bookshelves. And for some reason [Have over] was a tough clue for HOST (for me). Oh, and the "GAME" part of "YOU GAME?" wasn't readily apparent to me either (59D: "We doin' this?"). So all along the length of GAVE ME THE NOD, I had issues. Elsewhere, zero issues. None. No resistance. Comically easy.

Notes:

• 1A: Favors (ASKS) — "Favors" here is a noun
• 5A: Slathered in sauce, in restaurant-speak (WET) — I feel like this is specifically burrito-speak. Are there other speaks that apply?
• 57A: Sorry ass? (EEYORE) — I kinda like this clue. He is a sorry ass. I don't so much like that "ass" is also a crucial component of another clue in the puzzle (110A: Rude ... or, without its first two letters, rude person (CRASS)). Feels like a dupe, even though "ass" doesn't technically appear a second time.
• 96A: Professional who works a lot (VALET) — so, a car lot.
• 
  37D: Behaved like the lion in Oz (COWERED) — I guess he does that. Some part of me doesn't like this answer because he's the "cowardly" lion, and ... COWERED is a homophone of "coward," which actually fits the lion better ... I dunno. It's legit, but it's rubbing me the wrong way. Like ... wrong "coward," man.
• 67D: Man's name that becomes a distance if you move the first letter to the end (EMIL) — I am usually so bad at these "when you move a letter"-type clues, but damned if I didn't nail this one right out of the box. 
• 95D: Knocking onomatopoeia (RAT-A-TAT) — got this off the "R," which isn't that impressive. I think I would've gotten it even without the "R"—it's the only "knocking onomatopoeia" I can think of.
• 101D: Ancient Greek area north of Thessaly (THRACE) — I am aware of lots of ancient Greek names without being (very) aware of where any of them go on a map. Still, I was happy to piece this one together quickly.
• 103D: Color-blending technique (OMBRÉ) — this is a hair-coloring technique, as I understand it. Where the hair shades from one color into another, often getting lighter toward the tips. I first learned of OMBRE (in crosswords) as an old-timey card game, like Euchre or Whist, whatever those are (I learned them from crosswords too, I think ... or else from the poetry of Alexander Pope, I forget ... yep, sure enough, they play OMBRE in Pope's "The Rape of the Lock"; weird the things you (kinda sorta) remember from sophomore-year British Literature).

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Korean word for cooked rice / SUN 4-23-23 / TikTok persona typified by floppy hair and grunge clothing / W-4 collector for short / Accidental subject of certain snapshots / Portmanteau expressions popularized by Tyra Banks / Industrious animal in a classic fable

Constructor: Katie Hale and Scott Hogan

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: "Punctuation Matters" — 3rd-person indicative verb phrases are turned into wacky phrases by imagining that the "S" at the end of the first word is actually an "apostrophe S"; so "verb" is reimagined as "noun IS," basically:

Theme answers:

• "PLAY'S A TRICK" (25A: "Oh, now I understand the significance of the troupe's performance in 'Hamlet'!")
• "STAND'S IN THE WAY" (32A: "I can't get past this witness box!")
• "JERK'S AROUND" (41A: "Watch out for that bully!")
• "FALL'S OUT OF FAVOR" (58A: "Everyone dislikes autumn now!")
• "BAT'S FIVE HUNDRED" (76A: "Dracula has lived half a millennium!")
• "BEAR'S IN MIND" (87A: "I'm thinking of a grizzly!")
• "PLANT'S EVIDENCE" (98A: "Careful, the shrub may have fingerprints on it!")
• "PUZZLE'S OVER" (110A: "I finished this crossword!")

Word of the Day: LOCS (97A: Twisted do) —

Dreadlocks, also known as locs or dreads, are rope-like strands of hair formed by matting or braiding hair. (wikipedia)

• • •

Every week I want to come bearing good news about the Sunday puzzle. I really do. I yearn for a Sunday puzzle that even modestly tips the scale in the direction of "Enjoyment." And every week, no dice. I'm like Charlie Brown and the NYTXW editor is Lucy and the puzzle is the damn football. I truly don't understand how a puzzle with a theme this thin, with wordplay this basic and weak, could sustain even a 15x15 puzzle, let alone a 21x21. Sometimes simple gimmicks yield big results; you can get big laughs from little changes. Sometimes. Sometimes. But this just isn't one of those times. Leaving aside the fact that I don't know why these answers are all clued as *spoken* phrases, or why every one of the clues is shouted! ("!") ... there's just not enough juice to squeeze in any of these "jokes." The first time you see the gimmick, you get a little "oh, I see." But unfortunately you then have to "see" that same "joke" seven more times. At best, what you get is "oh yeah, that works." Like, with "FALL'S OUT OF FAVOR"—solid verb phrase to start, and then there's the cute little apostrophic switcheroo, very natural to say, OK. But that is Peak Theme. "BAT'S FIVE HUNDRED" makes no sense. No one just calls him "BAT." Maybe (maybe???) "The Bat," but that's more Batman. I really (really) thought COUNT was going to be in that answer, somehow, but no. And "BEAR'S IN MIND." I mean, in the wackiest scenario, you cannot imagine that as an actual phrase one might say. You'd have to have some specific bear in mind, and even then there'd be a "THE" before the "BEAR" and you'd probably actually say "on my mind" or something ... you'd definitely need the "my." "FALL'S OUT OF FAVOR" is on the money. "BEAR'S IN MIND" is nonsense. "PUZZLE'S OVER" works (and I guess it's supposed to be a kind of self-referential final themer, cute). But "JERK'S AROUND" just doesn't. Which jerk? Who? What? But honestly, none of my quibbles about plausibility or grammar mean that much, because again, this concept is never gonna max out at anything more than a "yeah, I guess that works." That's it. There are other reasons the puzzle was a chore to finish, but the main one is the lifeless theme.

I honestly had *no idea* how "PLAY'S A TRICK" was even supposed to work ... until I realized "omg they're making a very specific reference to a Hamlet plot point ... are people even going to remember or even be familiar with that plot point? So weird ..." So, in case you forgot, or never knew, Hamlet stages a play (called "The Murder of Gonzago") with a plot that parallels the murder of Hamlet's father; he does this so he can watch Claudius's reaction to the play. He's hoping to see evidence of guilt. The line I remember is, "The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king" (the "king" being, at this point, Claudius, whom Hamlet believes murdered his father). Sooooooooo the play (-within-a-play) is, in fact, A TRICK, of sorts. Deep, deep cut. Respect. Hope that clue didn't lose / confuse too many people (definitely confused me there for a bit). 

The fill is on the miserable side in this one, largely because the grid is super-choppy and mostly choked with 3-4-5-6-letter answers. Just a sea of short stuff. Hard to be interesting with so few longer (non-thematic) answers to work with. I was sour on this one right away, at the OPAHS / HRREP crossing. Hard wince. Brightly colored food fish = OPAH, not OPAHS. And HRREP is an answer only an HRREP could love. Combines the glamor of routine bureaucracy with the beauty of a bunch of letters smashed together. Woof. And while the rest of the grid isn't so terrible, neither is it very interesting, and when it tries to get interesting ... mostly it's just bad fill trying to *pass* as interesting. See AGENTK and EBOY. I kinda sorta remembered the TikTok phenomenon, but I remain never entirely sure about the "E" before BOY and as for the "K" in AGENT K, how in the hell am I supposed to remember that. Absolutely random letter from where I was standing. Thankfully JERK'S was pretty clear, because with both the "E" from E-BOY and the "K" from AGENT K as crosses, JERK'S feels very dicey and potentially disastrous. And then SMIZES is another that seems to be trying to be current (-ish), but in the plural that word somehow seems totally implausible and silly. SMIZE has been in the puzzle before ("smiling with the eyes"), but this is the first time it's appeared in the NYTXW as a plural. For a reason. Because it's bad as a plural. Some terms are bad as plurals, and this is one. The plural that really really got me today is also a debut, but it isn't actually bad. It's definitely a thing. I just couldn't make any sense of it. At all. Probably because I've never seen the term *written*, only spoken, so ... when I got LOCS (eennttiirreellyy from crosses), I assumed I had an error, first because the clue seemed to want a singular, not a plural, and second because that letter combination seemed impossible. LOCS? But I went over all four crosses, over and over, and they were unimpeachable, so I just crossed my fingers. Looked it up after I was done and ... "dreadlocks." That's it. No "K" in the abbr. spelling, it seems. I've heard the abbr. as "dreads," not "locs," but whatever, as you can see from the definition above ("Word of the Day") both "LOCS" and "dreads" are valid. My brain just glitched. Hard.

If Bert LAHR weren't old school crosswordese, I'd be real real upset about the LAHR / DAFOE crossing, because LEHR is definitely a name, as is DEFOE (I still haven't managed to keep the actor and the 18th-century novelist straight when it comes to spelling their names). But even though LAHR is a gimme for me and probably lots of solvers, that cross still doesn't feel ... great. I really like BLIND CURVE, both answer and clue (15D: Something you shouldn't pass on). GO PLACES also has good energy. Like BLIND CURVE, it's zippy, kinetic. AIR GUITAR and DARK HUMOR are also better than solid answers. I just wish there'd been more like them, more fun in the fill to make up for the tepid theme. Sorry to HATE ON yet another Sunday. Again, other days of the week manage to be good much of the time. Monday's puzzle was good. Saturday's was good. Thursday's was at least interesting, and certainly daring. I thought there were problems with the Thursday, but it was Trying. It had a boldness of vision and an ambition that I almost never see in the Sunday any more. I don't get it. The Sunday is supposed to the NYTXW's Big Day. Why does it so often feel phoned in? 

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. What is this "classic" HEN fable?? (86A: Industrious animal in a classic fable). I thought the ant was industrious and the grasshopper was lazy. What's the hen doing?? Oh, it's an "American" fable, "The Little Red Hen" ... She makes bread and then invites other animals to eat it with her and when they agree she's like "sorry, suckers, you didn't help, so you can starve, bwahhahahaha." Protestant Work Ethic at its most moralistic. "Politically themed revisions of the story include a conservative version based on a 1976 monologue from Ronald Reagan" (wikipedia). LOL, you don't say! Ugh. I thank my parents for never reading it to me. 

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Journalist Skeeter in the Harry Potter books / SUN 7-10-22 / Artless nickname / Roman emperor after Nero and Galba / Rocker John whose surname sounds like a leafy vegetable / Defunct company of accounting fraud fame / God whose name sounds almost like the ammunition he uses / Movement championed by the Silence Breakers / New York resting place for Mark Twain

Constructor: Christina Iverson and Scott Hogan

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: "Movin' On Up" — "ON" at the end of one familiar phrase is "moved" "up" and attached to the end of another familiar phrase directly above it—the "ON"-ing and de-"ON"-ing create wacky phrases, which are clued wackily (i.e. "?"-style)

Theme answers:

• 'TIS THE SEAS-- (74D: Response to "Why art thou queasy?") / FRUIT BATON (3D: Banana wielded by a maestro in a pinch?)
• STORE COUP-- (83D: Retail takeover scheme?) / WARM-UP TOON (6D: Animated short before a Pixar movie?)
• BOXING LESS-- (76D: What Amazon retirees enjoy most?) / TRASH CANON (9D: Give a scathing review of a major camera brand?)
• HEART SURGE-- (78D: Result of love at first sight?) / TACO BARON (13D: Mexican street food mogul?)
• WELCOME WAG-- (79D: What a dog greets its returning family with?) / MAIN DRAGON (16D: Smaug, in "The Hobbit"?)

Word of the Day: John CALE (20A: Rocker John whose surname sounds like a leafy vegetable) —

John Davies Cale OBE (born 9 March 1942) is a Welsh musician, composer, singer, songwriter and record producer who was a founding member of the American rock band the Velvet Underground. Over his six-decade career, Cale has worked in various styles across rock, drone, classical, avant-garde and electronic music.

He studied music at Goldsmiths College, University of London, before relocating in 1963 to New York City's downtown music scene, where he performed as part of the Theatre of Eternal Music and formed the Velvet Underground. Since leaving the band in 1968, Cale has released 16 solo studio albums, including the widely acclaimed Paris 1919 (1973) and Music for a New Society (1982). Cale has also acquired a reputation as an adventurous record producer, working on the debut albums of several innovative artists, including the Stooges and Patti Smith. (wikipedia)

• • •

Something about the verticality of this theme was mildly disorienting. The other disorienting thing was that not only did the long Down themers have "?" clues, but the very first long Across had a "?" clue as well, meaning that all three of the first long answers I encountered had "?" clues, so I had no idea what the theme was doing or which way it was going. That is, STUD FARMS (23A: Where some stable relationships form?) really looked like it was a theme answer, somehow, so ...  yeah, disorienting, as I said. Somehow the first themer that I actually got in full was "TIS THE SEAS!"; I had picked up the "ON" at the end of FRUIT BATON, but did not yet know that was the answer. When I saw the "ON" and recalled that the title of the puzzle was "Movin' On Up," I immediately went down to the longish answer just below the "ON" and, noticing it too was a "?" clue, figured the "ON" had been moved "up" ... so this lower themer would be lacking the "ON" (where the upper themer had gained it). I did not expect that literally every themer would have the "ON" either taken from or added to its tail end, but that's what ended up happening, making it very easy to just put "ON"s into all the upper themers while also imagining them missing from the lower ones. Solving it felt pretty programmatic. Some of the wackiness landed—I liked "'TIS THE SEAS" and WELCOME WAG and the idea of a TACO BARON (whom I wanted to be a TAPA (?) BARON at first). But there wasn't enough cleverness or hilarity here to sustain a Sunday-length solve. This is always the challenge of Sunday—something that might, theoretically, delight in a 15x15 becomes kind of a drag when carried out over an entire 21x21. And the fill wasn't making any friends today either, so after Saturday's grueling but carefully crafted masterpiece, this felt much more conventional, and was something of a let-down. 

There are a lotta "Why?"s in this grid. Like, why are there two "UP"s in the grid, especially in a puzzle where "UP" is in the title and relevant to the whole concept? One of the "UP"s is even in a themer (WARM-UP TOON) (the other is in ACTS UP). Why isn't there a second question mark in the clue for "'TIS THE SEAS!" (74D: Response to "Why art thou queasy?")—you need one "?" for the normal interrogative, but you need another to cue the thematic wackiness. All the other themers get wacky "?"s at the end, that one needs one as well. More whys. Why would you needlessly add yet more Harry Potter content (RITA) to a puzzle that already has a necessarily Pottery answer (SNAPE)?! There are a million (give or take) ways to clue RITA, so why are you leaning into the Rowlingverse, exactly? (95A: Journalist Skeeter in the Harry Potter books). Yuck. Why is there an "ON" in a Down answer that does *not* move "up"? (15D: Defunct company of accounting fraud fame => ENRON). And lastly (I think), why is there a (horrible) singular SCAD (114D: Large amount) when you could've just made it a SCAM? Maybe SCAM or TEEM is already in the grid somewhere and I'm just not seeing it, but oof, singular SCAD, just say 'no,' esp. when it's easy to say 'no.' Oh, one more why—why is the clue on MILAN [Where 122-Across can be found] when 122-Across is merely SCALA. It is super-awkward to tell me to look at an answer and then not have the answer itself be enough—the answer is just a partial. You need to read the clue *and* the answer to make the MILAN clue make sense. Ungainly. Don't do this. Not worth it. 

No significant mistakes to speak of today. I had Smaug as a REAL DRAGON at first. Balked at DAGNABIT because I thought it had two "B"s. Balked at BROUHAHA because I thought it had two "O"s. Wasn't sure if it was BRIER or BRIAR. Had MAD before WAY (94D: Very, colloquially). Took (seemingly) forever for me to figure out why STU was right for 66A: Artless nickname? (take the "art" out of "Stuart" and you get STU). I kinda wish the clue on NIGHT had started with [When repeated...] (99A: "Sweet dreams!" => "NIGHT!"). That's all I got in the way of commentary today.

Hey, I need to remind you that another installment of the Boswords Crossword Tournament is headed your way later this month. Or, if you're local, maybe you're headed its way (it's in person *and* online this time) (in-person at The Roxbury Latin School in West Roxbury, MA). Anyway, here's the info from tourney organizer John Lieb:

Registration is now open for the Boswords 2022 Summer Tournament, which will be held on Sunday, July 24. This event will be both In-Person and Online. Solvers can compete individually or in pairs. To register, to see the constructor roster, and for more details, go to www.boswords.org, where past tournament puzzles are also available for purchase.

Take care. See you tomorrow (or next week, if you're one of those Sundays-only folks)

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. I was so very much thrown by the clue on WAS (79A: Second word of many a limerick) since the main limerick I know begins "There once WAS a man from Nantucket..." —with WAS in the third position.

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