Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle: Stacey Yaruss McCullough

Constructor: Stacey Yaruss McCullough

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: Rat-a-tat splat? — wacky "blank-a-blank blank" phrases where all the "blanks" rhyme:

Theme answers:

RUB-A-DUB CLUB (17A: Gathering for lathering?)
DING-A-LING BLING (26A: Jewels for fools?)
CHOCK-A-BLOCK WOK (42A: Fryer piled higher?)
CHUG-A-LUG MUG (56A: Cup to drink up?)

Word of the Day: FAB LABS (9D: Workspaces with 3-D printers and laser cutters, informally) —

[Gabby, Baxter, ca. '09, RIP]
A fab lab (fabrication laboratory) is a small-scale workshop offering (personal) digital fabrication.
A fab lab is typically equipped with an array of flexible computer-controlled tools that cover several different length scales and various materials, with the aim to make "almost anything". This includes technology-enabled products generally perceived as limited to mass production.
While fab labs have yet to compete with mass production and its associated economies of scale in fabricating widely distributed products, they have already shown the potential to empower individuals to create smart devices for themselves. These devices can be tailored to local or personal needs in ways that are not practical or economical using mass production.
The fab lab movement is closely aligned with the DIY movement, open-source hardware, maker culture, and the free and open-source movement, and shares philosophy as well as technology with them. (wikipedia)

• • •

Well this write-up really will be short because I don't know what to say about this. I feel like there must be something I'm missing. There's the "___-A-___" thing, and the rhyming thing, but the specific wackiness? I don't get. What rhymes with "Rub"? Lots of things! Pick one! Which one? Who cares?? CLUB, BLING, WOK, MUG, these could've been any other appropriately rhyming words, right? The utter arbitrariness of all of them is weird. I do not get the logic here at all. Usually there's some *reason* for the wacky, but today, that reason appears to be solely "well, it rhymes," and that ... doesn't feel like much. There's this kind of desperate attempt to make the theme ... denser? ... by making the clues rhyme too, but that only highlights the thinness of the theme. The clue rhyme is different from the answer rhyme. I can't really call this a fault because I don't really know what the theme thinks it's doing. I don't get it. Sincerely. CHUG-A-LUG MUG at least makes a kind of sense—you might chug out of a mug. But CHOCK-A-BLOCK WOK makes no sense at all unless you work at a wok storage facility, and even then, wouldn't you say "CHOCK-A-BLOCK WOKS," plural? Help me make it make sense. Or don't. There's (literally) always another day, and Thursday will come soon enough.

The puzzle felt like it should've been on the easy side, but I got hung up enough on the fill that it ended up closer to Medium for me. The arbitrariness of those final theme words didn't help, though. Specifically, I had DING-A-LING RINGS as that second themer, at first. The plural in the clue ("jewels") had me thinking "plural" in the answer, and "RINGS" have jewels, and "RINGS" is plural, and "RINGS" rhymes with "DING" and "LING," so that's what I wrote in. And it was wrong. I have never heard of FAB LABS despite the fact that my brother-in-law talked my ear off (in a good way!) about 3D printing earlier this month when I was in Santa Barbara on the family vacay. He has a small-scale home workshop, though, I think—a personal fab lab. Anyway, he never used the term and I was left to discover it the hard way, today, mid-puzzle. The "FAB" here refers to "fabrication" and not, alas, "fabulous," which is what I (sincerely) assumed. "What wondrous technologies these are! Let's call the place where you use them ... the fabulous laboratory! No! Better yet, the fab lab!" That one answer kept me from turning the corner from the top into the top-right, which was a fairly significant stoppage. The only other thing I didn't really know in this puzzle was ICE BOX CAKE, but at least I've heard of it, vaguely. Can't quite conceive it, but I've heard of it.

The fill on this one felt a little clunky (RICAN, AGER) but I think it's mostly solid and overall just fine. Errors (besides the RINGS-for-BLING thing (!)) included "C'MON!" for "I'M IN!" (52D: "Let's do it!"), and "MMMM!" and "MORE!" for MOAN (36D: Reaction upon tasting a decadent dessert).

Notes:

55A: Outfit inspiration for a Swiftie (ERA) — is the "Eras Tour" not over yet? When are we gonna stop doing this tortured "Let's make the puzzle youthfulish by forcing clues to be about Swifties" thing? Never? OK. I'm pro-Taylor Swift and Swifties but ... pick your spots. This clue felt like a stretch. Do people really say to themselves "I'm going to dress like Taylor from [X] 'ERA'?" Yes? OK. Moving on.
34A: Toy found in King Tut's tomb (TOP) — really wanted PUG or POM. Wrong kind of "toy."
30D: Most common Czech surname (NOVAK) — I did not know that. The only NOVAKs I know* are B.J. NOVAK and then the cranky conservative NOVAK guy who used to be on PBS, who I feel like is actually related to B.J. NOVAK. Hang on ... ah, no, I screwed that up. Robert NOVAK was the conservative PBS commentator guy. No relation to B.J., I don't think. B.J.'s father is William NOVAK, who ghostwrote celebrity memoirs for Lee Iacocca, Nancy Reagan, and Magic Johnson. The most famous NOVAK is probably NOVAK Djokovic, but there, it's his first name, and also, he's Serbian, not Czech. Annnnnyway....

53D: Mysterious character (RUNE) — ah, "character" as in "letter or symbol," not "fictional and/or distinctive person."
40D: Sus (SKETCHY) — I like this, though since the clue is abbr. slang (for "suspicious"), the answer really should be SKETCH (an abbr. I have definitely used and heard used). Here's Ben Zimmer writing in the Times (2010) about related terms: "Creeper! Rando! Sketchball!"
50D: Guinness record holder for "Mammal with the most names" (PUMA) — Mountain lion, cougar, catamount ... I went through an "I Love Mountain Lions" phase around the turn of the century. It was a weird time. I blame Y2K.

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

*oh &^$% I forgot about Kim NOVAK, how!?!?