Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle: TImothy Gaetz

Constructor: Timothy Gaetz

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (Easy once you get the trick)

THEME: NO IFS AND OR BUTS (63A: Emphatic instruction for entering the answers to the puzzle's 10 starred clues?) — answers to starred clues have the letters "IF," "AND," or "BUT" removed, creating, uh, shorter answers that don't fit the clue:

Theme answers:

VER[IF]Y (14A: *Confirm to be true)
[BUT]CHER (16A: *Someone who knows how the sausage gets made?)
TRI[BUT]ES (34A: *Formal expressions of praise)
ST[AND]OUT (47A: *One who's conspicuously excellent)
WA[IF]S (71A: *Street urchins)
B[AND]ITS (7D: *Armed thieves)
S[IF]TING (28D: *Removing lumps from, in a way)
[BUT]TONED (32D: *Like dress shirts, typically)
DE[BUT]ED (40D: *Showed for the first time)
ERR[AND]S (42D: *Buying a gallon of milk, picking up the laundry, etc.)

Word of the Day: STAN Smith (61D: 1970s tennis champ Smith) —

Stanley Roger Smith (born December 14, 1946) is an American former professional tennis player. A world No. 1 player and two-time major singles champion (at the 1971 US Open and 1972 Wimbledon Championships), Smith also paired with Bob Lutz to create one of the most successful doubles teams of all-time.
In 1970, Smith won the inaugural year-end championships title. In 1972, he was the year-end world No. 1 singles player. In 1973, he won his second and last year end championship title at the Dallas WCT Finals. In addition, he won four Grand Prix Championship Series titles.
In his early years he improved his tennis game through lessons from Pancho Segura, the Pasadena Tennis Patrons, and the sponsorship of the Southern California Tennis Association headed by Perry T. Jones. Smith is a past President of the International Tennis Hall of Fame and an ITHF Life Trustee. Outside tennis circles, Smith is best known as the namesake of a line of tennis shoes made by Adidas. (wikipedia)

• • •

Is "OM!" an interjection!? (8D: Midwest city whose name consists of two interjections = OMAHA). I'm imagining meditators shouting it and then high-fiving each other at the end of meditation session. "OM! Nice work, bro! Up top!" I get that "AHA!" is an exclamation, but "OM!" ... I don't get. Unless the two interjections are "O!" and "MAHA!" — ew, even typing MAHA made me kind of nauseated just now. Is the "M" just pretending it's not there. Like, "ignore me ... look at the other letters! They're definitely exclamations!" Why would you do this to OMAHA? I guess they had to try something to liven this puzzle up. When you have only two (2) (!) answers (outside the revealer) longer than six (6) (!?) letters, you gotta do everything you can to drum up some excitement. The themers are all just three to five letters long. I wonder if the theme might've worked better, i.e. been more spectacular, stunning, remarkable, funny, whatever, if the theme had been allowed to play out on a bigger canvas, with longer, wackier answers. I did a laugh a little, inside, at the idea of CHER being [Someone who knows how the sausage gets made?]. But overall, the theme answers were just so tidy, and tiny, that once I got the gimmick, there wasn't much interest left. What if you had taken the stars off the affected clues and then strewn the themers haphazardly (as opposed to perfectly symmetrically) around the grid? Now that would've been an adventure. Still the problem of short/boring themers, but at least there would've been a Real challenge. There's a good concept here—and NO IFS ANDS OR BUTS is an excellent standalone phrase, as well as an extremely literal revealer, but the execution was kind of ho-hum.

You can tell early on, or I could, that the answer at 14A should be VERIFY, but of course it won't fit. At first I thought maybe there was a rebus, and that "RIF" was all supposed to go in one square, but "RIF" is meaningless and anyway the cross (PREPAYMENT) eventually took care of any ambiguity as to how to enter the theme answer. After the missing "IF," my next themer appeared to be missing an "IRR" (!?). I mean, 28D: *Removing lumps from, in a way had to be ST[IRR]ING, right? Wrong. I actually didn't figure out what that answer was supposed to be (S[IF]TING) until after I was done with the puzzle. After I ran into a couple more starred clues and not getting anywhere quickly, I decided just to jump to the revealer and see what was going on. I got "NO IFS ANDS OR BUTS" immediately, with absolutely no crosses (63A: Emphatic instruction for entering the answers to the puzzle's 10 starred clues?). And that was pretty much that, difficulty-wise.

Not many places to screw up today once you got the theme, but even before that. I was able to sail around themers pretty easily, because, again, practically the entire grid was made up of toeholds, i.e. 3-to-5-letter answers. Nothing hard to parse, nothing esoteric. I had to navigate the stupid ambiguous clock toggle at 1A: Toggle on a digital clock (AM/PM), which of course I wrote in incorrectly (AM/FM). But PREPAYMENT eventually took care of that (3D: Necessity for a reservation, perhaps). I didn't really know that POT was a snooker term (23D: Shoot into the pocket, in snooker). But other than that, I don't remember a single moment of struggle. Helped that I was familiar with Blame It On RIO and STAN Smith, as well as crosswordese like "I, TOO" and OASTS and STENO. I'm not sure where any difficulty would come from today, outside the puzzle's gimmick. I also didn't object to much in today's puzzle. I think the THE in THE PRAIRIE is kind of absurd (11D: Setting for a Laura Ingalls Wilder book series). Yes, one of the books, and the TV show, was called Little House on THE PRAIRIE, but that doesn't all of a sudden make THE PRAIRIE good standalone fill. If you're doing a partial title, then clue it that way. I wouldn't like THE SEA as an answer for [Setting for a Hemingway novel] either, any more than I'd like THE MOHICANS as an answer for [Tribe in a James Fenimore Cooper novel]. Gratuitous definite articles, bah. But it's easy, and harmless, so I'm not actually mad. Just kinda side-eyeing that answer a little.

What else?:

15A: Like 2027 and 2029, but not 2025 (PRIME) — they're numbers, not years! Surprise. I didn't know there were PRIMEs so close together still when the numbers got that high, but admittedly I spend almost no time thinking about PRIME numbers in my regular life. The top section of this puzzle was the hardest for me to get into, because it had a themer and it had that weird OMAHA clue and it had this clue (which I didn't get instantly) and it had the actor from Succession, which I'll never watch because the very, very (very) last thing I want to watch is stories about billionaires. I'm sure the show is great. I hear it's great. But ... my brain cannot take it. I don't want to hear anymore about ****ing billionaires than I absolutely ****ing have to. I'm not curious. I'm not interested. I'm not envious. I just don't care, and I'm exhausted from endless media fascination with the amoral rich. Just pay your fair share of taxes and leave me alone. You know what's a good show? Dying for Sex. Stunningly good. So original. So beautiful. And not a billionaire in sight.

22A: Unwanted "ingredient" when assembling s'mores, say (ASH) — because the marshmallow melted off your stick and fell in the fire.
33A: Li'l belly (TUM) — this is more like [Half a li'l belly], but I'll allow it.
39A: Like some coffees and mob targets (ICED) — grim. No need to bring murder into this. Why would you ruin coffee time like that? [Like some coffees and cakes]. See, much nicer. And you still get your double meaning. Win-win!
50A: Animal symbol of innocence (DOE) — me: "LAMB." Then me: "... ... ..."
57A: Companionship (ARK) — ooh, that's a good clue. Nice pun on "ship." I wrote this in first as ARM, which I liked OK (you might offer your companion your ARM if you're escorting them somewhere or merely walking affectionately side by side). But Noah's ARK, animals, two by two, yes, that's good.
13D: Huge fan club, so to speak (ARMY) — Arnie's ARMY is the fan club I associate most with ARMY, though it looks like there's a BTS ARMY, which I imagine is fairly massive. I would've written HIVE in here if the crosses hadn't prevented me.