Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle: Scott McMahon

Constructor: Scott McMahon

Relative difficulty: Extremely Easy

THEME: none

Word of the Day: MAHÓN (2D: Capital and second-largest city of Minorca) —

[flag of Minorca—love an insignia that looks like a video game villain]

Mahón (Spanish: [maˈon]), officially Maó (Catalan: [məˈo], locally [ˈmo]; formerly spelled Mahó), and also written as Mahon or Port Mahon in English, is the capital and second largest city of Menorca. The city is located on the eastern coast of the island, which is part of the archipelago and autonomous community of the Balearic Islands.
Mahón has one of the longest natural harbours in the world: 5 kilometres (3 miles) long and up to 900 metres (3,000 feet) wide. The water is deep but remains mostly clear due to the port's enclosed nature. Mayonnaise is considered to have originated in Mahón.
Its population in 2021 was estimated to be 29,125. (wikipedia)

• • •

One of those puzzles where I kinda wish I was still speed-solving, still timing myself and going as fast as I can, because I swear I could've dropped this one in about 3 (roughly my average Monday time, back when I was keeping track). Crushing a personal best would've given me at least a little rush, which is more sensation than I got out of solving this one at a relaxed pace. When you stack 15s, you ... well, you can't expect much in the way of fill excitement. It's hard just to get those damn 15s to stack in such a way that the crosses don't suck. Expecting scintillation from such a construction is probably not fair. At best you're going to top out at "smooth," which I think this one does, mostly. CARE TO ELABORATE and CHRISTMAS SPIRIT are pleasant enough; all the other 15s (save one) are at least solid. Then there's the palindrome ... partial? Oof. Not a category of fill I'd aspire to draw from. Easy to get (very easy), but ugly, compared to all the others. If you knew the palindrome, then that one was a gimme, and of course getting 1-Across in a puzzle like this is a huge momentum-booster, as now you've got the front ends of allllll the crosses. I thought I might have some trouble navigating from one section of this puzzle to the next, as the passageways are pretty narrow, but nope, it was easy. Continuity of the solve never broke, from the opening gambit:

To the transition to the middle:

To the very bottom of the grid:

I guess I kinda sorta broke continuity when the only answer I was able immediately to drop into the bottom was KNELT, and I was not able to confidently cross it with anything (so many birds are four letters and end in "N"—I thought maybe SWAN) (48A: Avian symbol of good fortune in Celtic culture), and so I checked one those four-letter Downs in the SW to see if they could help, and one of them immediately did (ROTE) (49D: ___ learning). From ROTE, I got WREN and ... well, immediately f'd up by writing in WISP instead of WHIT at 48D: Slightest amount, but that was easily corrected. After that, no resistance. Puzzle over.

Quick start on this one, as ACCRA was a gimme (or the first thing I thought of, anyway) (1D: City that's the "heart of Africa's art scene," per National Geographic), and ANY and ROAN confirmed it very quickly. The palindrome was obvious from there, and the top third went down in a flash. Stunned that I was able to drop all four long Downs into the middle third of the grid off just their first letters. I literally beat my chest here at my desk trying to conjure the type of guy who acts like that, and I thought "so he's like a GORILLA ... wait! No, he *is* a GORILLA ... or it's a literal GORILLA, whatever" (22D: Chest-beating sort). WINSLET and TUNED IN, no sweat. I probably needed the "M" from MUM to get "I'M ALIVE," actually. But still, zero trouble there. Middle went down so fast I literally never looked at the clue for *two* of those 15s (SPANISH OMELETTE, SATELLITE DISHES). Just filled them in easily after tearing through so many of the crosses. The one sticking point today, if you can call it that, which you cannot (credibly), came at the middle-bottom, when I stalled out on both the Arabic word for "prayer" (starting "S") and the Netflix category (starting "A"). Had no guesses for the latter, and thought maybe the former was SANA'A (!?), but was (wisely) not willing to commit to that. Waited for the rush of answers to come over from the SW, and sure enough, those 15s flooded the zone and SALAH and ANIME became clear, though I needed every cross for SALAH, the last of which came from CAN, which had a hard (toilet) clue.

Bullets:

2D: Capital and second-largest city of Minorca (MAHÓN) — look, I'm sure it's tempting to sign your puzzle like this—probably feels winky and cute and clever—but when you have to rely on geographic obscurity in order to do it, maybe don't. "Capital" is a funny word since not only is Minorca not a country (it belongs to Spain), it's not even a province. I don't really know what it is, administratively. Anyway, if you didn't know MAHÓN, I'm here to absolve you of any feelings of geographic inadequacy or failure. There's no reason you should know it (only been in the puzzle two other times ('03, '15, both Sundays)).
19A: Female rapper with the 2008 hit "Paper Planes" (MIA) — a classic. An absolute banger. One of the most iconic hip-hop songs of the '00s (in that I was largely checked out of contemporary music for that decade, but that song still got through to me, loud and clear). MIA is Tamil (born in Britain to Sri Lankan parents). Last I heard of her, she was appearing at RFK, Jr. rallies. Life is long and weird and sometimes tragic.

[mkay ...]

31A: One of 12 for Katharine Hepburn (OSCAR NOMINATION) — first of all, technically there are three (3!) "Kates" in this puzzle, only one of them's a Katharine (often called "Kate") and the other is a CATE (presumably pronounced "Kate") (33D: ___ Tiernan, author of the "Immortal Beloved' trilogy). Second, in a weird coincidence, I've been reading the new book Box Office Poison, about spectacular movie flops throughout history, and not only was Katharine Hepburn featured prominently (for her role in the not-at-all-successful Sylvia Scarlett), but so was Orson Welles—not for Citizen KANE (26D: Memorable title role of a 1941 film), but for The Magnificent Ambersons (though there's a lot of info on KANE in that chapter). I liked that KANE crossed the Hepburn answer, is what I'm saying. Felt like the puzzle was speaking to me (or spying on me).

8D: ___ LeRoy Locke, "Father of the Harlem Renaissance" (ALAIN) – in yet another bizarre reading coincidence, I held an ALAIN Locke book in my hand just last week. Pulled it off the shelf at Autumn Leaves in Ithaca and perused a few pages, thinking "man, he's a really good writer. I should make time to read him sometime soon." And here we are. OK, universe, you win. I'll put him on the To-Read pile.

41A: Informal hookups (IVS) — "Informal" here just means "abbreviated"
42A: Half a candy bar? (KAT) — love a good KOI KAT candy bar ...
53A: Hit 1976 album whose title track won the Grammy for Record of the Year (HOTEL CALIFORNIA) — I'm an unapologetic Eagles fan—I was raised on Greatest Hits, Vol. 1, so it would be a kind of betrayal of my heritage if I tried to pretend I was too cool for the Eagles—but even I don't really like (the song) "HOTEL CALIFORNIA."

10D: Required safety feature on cars, in brief (ABS) — Anti-lock Braking System. Did not know these were actually"required" (presumably on new cars only)
27A: It's the word (MUM) — if you don't know the expression "MUM's the word," this clue will be awfully strange.

52D: Person partial to humour? (BRIT) — the spelling on "humour" is the giveaway here. If you're British (or Canadian, or Kiwi, or etc.), it's possible that that might not have registered.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. Last week during my yearly fundraising drive I decided to add Zelle as a payment method on the last day, which worked fine ... until it didn't. Several contributions were mysteriously rejected. It is not a big deal, but if you contributed that way, it's possible it didn't go through (this applies to only like a dozen of you). The problem was on my end ("MY BAD!"). I apologize. The bank and I have spoken. I should have the kinks ironed out for next year. For now, it's still just PayPal, Venmo, and snail mail. Thanks!

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