62A What "should be made by filling a glass with gin, then waving it in the general direction of Italy," per Noël Coward - THU 3-31-22 - Marginalia - chess:check::go:_____ - reader's jottings

Constructor: OLIVER ROEDER

Relative difficulty: MEDIUM

THEME: MARGINALIA (letters are missing at the edges of the puzzle)

Word of the Day: DRY MARTINI (62A What "should be made by filling a glass with gin, then waving it in the general direction of Italy," per Noël Coward) —

The martini is a cocktail made with gin and vermouth, and garnished with an olive or a lemon twist. Over the years, the martini has become one of the best-known mixed alcoholic beverages. H. L. Mencken called the martini "the only American invention as perfect as the sonnet," and E. B. White called it "the elixir of quietude". (wikipedia)

• • •

Greetings, CrossWorld - my name is Whit and I have the honor of stepping in to blog for Rex today. It's my second time here. I suppose this came about because I was tweeting about the first time I guest-blogged, way back in 2019. When I published that blog, my wife's uncle called her up - I don't think they had ever discussed crosswords or crossword blogs before - to ask if that was her husband writing for Rex Parker. Then, a few days later, I ran into someone who works with my wife, and he also asked if that was me. He said, rather dryly, "Was that you writing on Rex Parker? I don't care for him." A loyal readership, anyway you can get it.

(This is my dog. She's a good dog.)

I'm glad to be back. Let's get to the puzzle.

Theme answers:

• ATED (1A Beat in chess - MATED)
• HIMO (10A Classic Jumbotron Shout-out - HIMOM)
• RTTEACHER (20A Educator in a Smock - ARTTEACHER)
• MEDUS (22A Figure seen on Athena's shield - MEDUSA)
• ACEHORSE (32A Thoroughbred, eg. - RACEHORSE)
• PGATOU (36A FedEx Cup Organizer - PGATOUR)
• OBLETS (46A Some drinking vessels - GOBLETS)
• NOPARKIN (48A Kind of zone in a city - NOPARKING)
• CEMAN (59A Profession in an O'Neill Title - ICEMAN)
• DRYMARTIN (62A What "should be made by filling a glass with gin, then waving it in the general direction of Italy," per Noël Coward - DRYMARTINI
• ERDY (70A Geekish - NERDY)
• EPSO (72A Big name in printers - EPSON)

This took me 18 minutes, give or take, which is on the high end of my stats for a Thursday. I confess that I don't care for this type of puzzle. The approach - slicing off those first and last letters for the theme answers - usually feels less like a feat and more like a trick. And I get kinda testy with crosswords when I know the answer but I can't make it fit. I like a clean solve, folks. But I will tip my hat, because there's more going on with those missing letters than I first realized. Each clue on the across is missing the same letter, and put together, those missing letters spell: M-A-R-G-I-N. Still a trick, but more on the clever side than I expected. And the theme answers themselves were all pretty good - I liked RACEHORSE and ARTTEACHER (I'm just writing out the actual word here, it looks silly otherwise.) I picked DRYMARTINI as the word of the day because I a) love martinis and b) love to see Coward get a shout-out in the crossword. I read Phillip Hoare's (HOAR - 14A Frost) biography a few years back and very much enjoyed it, though he only addresses the one thing everyone knows about Noël Coward - that funny little diacritic - very obliquely. And, like, that's half the reason you'd pick up that book to start, right? Tell me about how I can get one of those in my name! (Turns out he just decided to do it. Not much of a story.) 

(The man had style!)

Apart from the theme answers, though, answers were very short and kind of clunky. I liked IMAMS (40A Muslim leaders) - Ramadan starts tomorrow, Eid Mubarak - and ISLAS (18A Sorna y Nublar, en "Jurassic Park") because dinosaurs chomping on people is fun to think about, but other than that, the fill didn't have much kick. RATON (43A Get into trouble, in a way) is clunky. TOYOU (53A Two-word tribute) is clunky. CANI (69A "Pretty please?" is clunky. And the way the grid was laid out meant that everything felt tight.

Man, I think I'm kinda down on this puzzle.

But I'm not down on the blog! This was fun to write and it was fun to think about the puzzle this way. I hope Rex will have me back again.

Bullets:

• 65A: Kid-lit character with a green suit and gold crown (BABAR) — Babar rules. Always happy to see Babar floating around the world. He lives in Celesteville, and his wife is named Celeste, so I like to imagine that there is a complicated matriarchal power structure in Elephantland and Babar is a puppet king.
• 68A: Chess:check::go:____ (ATARI) — I did not know that was where the word Atari comes from. Apparently Go is one of the hardest games in the world to master. I know that I paid 99 cents for a phone app and then immediately gave up trying to learn.
• 21D: Reader's jottings, e.g. (ANNOTATION) — I realize I haven't really talked about any of the downs, and I think that's because I mostly solved this on the across clues. There's some meat to the down answers and the puzzle can stretch its legs there. I might have been more pleased if I'd taken the all-downs approach.
• 44D: Scan options for the claustrophobic (OPENMRIS) — Who isn't claustrophobic in an MRI machine? 

Signed, Whit Vann, Pretender to the Baronage of the Southwest Corner of CrossWorld

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When the Lyrid meteor shower typically peaks / THURS 8-4-2021 / Son in "Tess of the D'Urbervilles" / Portrait seen on renminbi bank notes

Constructor: ADAM WAGNER

Relative difficulty: HARD

THEME: MYTHICAL CREATURES — The "components" of two mythical creatures serve as words in idioms

Theme answers:

• MERMAID (7D: Hybrid creature of myth)
• [WOMAN] OF THE WORLD (17A: After the top half of 7-Down, sophisticated lady)
• DRINK LIKE A [FISH] (30A: Before the bottom half of a 7-Down, tipple and then some)
• CENTAUR (42D: Hybrid creature of myth)
• [MAN] HOLE COVERS (45A: After the top half of 42-Down, circles around the block?)
• BEATS A DEAD [HORSE] (58A: Before the bottom half of a 42-Down, keeps arguing after something has been decided)

Word of the Day:

APRIL (When the Lyrid meteor shower usually peaks) —

The April Lyrids are a meteor shower lasting from April 16 to April 26 each year. The radiant of the meteor shower is located in the constellation Lyra, near its brightest star, Vega. The peak of the shower is typically around April 22 each year. (Wiki)

• • •

Good morning, folks! Malaika here, back for round 2 of blogging. (But after this, I'm done-- you'll have some other guests.)  I solved this puzzle while listening to "Silver Springs" on loop. I listened to it about four times, which means this puzzle took me about twenty minutes.

It took me a bit to understand what was happening because I mistakenly thought that the two central down entries were one fourteen-letter creature. (No reason for that except maybe the cocktail that I had with dinner.) (Grapefruit juice, lemon juice, arak, and mint, wildly tasty, thanks for asking.) Once I finally got it, my big question was Why. I actually jumped to the lower left to see if there was a revealer. But nope! No reasoning at all!

These are certainly not the only mythological creatures that are half/half, and not even the only ones that are half animal and half human! I fear that the rationale here is constructor-based. As in, "Oh hey! These are two mythical creatures! They both have seven letters! There's no other connection at all, but I can't get this detail out of my head, so I am going to build an entire puzzle around it!" (By the way, I think it's fine to go ahead and build that puzzle, and then it's up to The Times to say "Sorry babe, that's not tight enough for us.") Is a mermaid canonically half-fish? Or just half- ...sea creature? Also, you could argue that a centaur is front/back more than it is top/bottom, so even the phrasing of that triplet of clues didn't totally land for me. The gender thing was super weird as well. A mermaid has her merman counterparts (I'm not going to delve too deep into the gender binary right now!!), but are centaurs all men?? Surely not, and yet that's what the clues would have us believe. I'm not going to do any Googling on this by the way, for fear of what I may discover.

Sound off in the comments!

I actually don't solve Sundays, because I'm not a masochist, but I wonder if this would have made more sense in a Sunday puzzle, with a bunch more creatures (faun! Griffin!) sprinkled around the grid. I get that crossing the theme answers with the creatures is a Big Fancy Architectural Feat, but it didn't add much to my experience, personally.

LOTS of double clues in this one. We had Sushi bar choice for EEL and AHI. Then Graph component for GRID and AXIS. And Bucolic call / Bucolic beasts for BAA and EWES. I think that double clues are the least exciting way to make a clue clever. It's sort of like, "Hmm. I couldn't come up with a good question-mark clue. I couldn't come up with some evocative imagery. There is nothing historically interesting about this. What else can I do... oh! I guess I'll do a repeat clue. That'll add a little zest." And I guess it does add a little zest, but just a little.

Also, I guess I'll call out that this is the second day in a row with a "Game of Thrones" reference. Yesterday's didn't need it (IRON can be clued a zillion different ways), but KHALS is a word that only exists in the "Game of Thrones" universe, to my knowledge. I'll rarely complain about "Game of Thrones" in a puzzle, because they're always easy gets for me, but I acknowledge that fantasy stuff is super tough if you didn't happen to consume that piece of media, because the letter-order isn't necessarily inferable. (At least they didn't put him in there, I guess.) I learned the words "orc" and "ent" exclusively from solving crosswords.

Bullets:

• All this talk about horses reminded me of a fact I learned last week, which is that all horses have the same birthday. Can you believe it??? Add that to your calendar: August 1. Horse Day.
• Draft picks for ALES is a lovely clue
• Pole worker for ELF as well
• A host of answers? for TREBEK as well
• Perhaps it is shallow to comment that this is a really pretty grid layout, but here I am. Commenting that this is a really pretty grid layout. I love those chains of diagonal blocks.
  

Signed, Malaika "7x7 overlord" Handa

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South Asian living abroad / THU 3-11-21 / The Bulldogs of the N.C.A.A. / 1940 Arthur Koestler novel set during the Moscow Trials / In yoga, one side of a triangle formed in triangle pose

Constructor: Leslie Rogers

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: SPRING FORWARD (Observe daylight saving time, in a way ... as in 17-, 29- and 54-Across?) — The three theme entries are phrases that include times, all of which have been "sprung forward" by one hour

Theme answers:

• DARKNESS AT ONE PM (60A: 1940 Arthur Koestler novel set during the Moscow Trials)
• SIX O'CLOCK SHADOW (29A: Short stubble)
• BURN THE ONE AM OIL (54A: Work very late)

Word of the Day: PULSAR (45D: Dense, spinning celestial body) —

 A pulsar (from pulse and -ar as in “quasar”)^[1] is a highly magnetized rotating compact star (usually neutron stars but also white dwarfs) that emits beams of electromagnetic radiation out of its magnetic poles.^[2] This radiation can be observed only when a beam of emission is pointing toward Earth (similar to the way a lighthouse can be seen only when the light is pointed in the direction of an observer), and is responsible for the pulsed appearance of emission. Neutron stars are very dense and have short, regular rotational periods. This produces a very precise interval between pulses that ranges from milliseconds to seconds for an individual pulsar. Pulsars are one of the candidates for the source of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays. (See also centrifugal mechanism of acceleration.)

• • •

Hi all, Rachel Fabi in for Rex today. I enjoyed this one a lot! The theme is clever, the theme entries are funny and interesting, and the fill is, on the whole, pretty uniformly excellent, with just a couple exceptions. 

The flow of the solve felt different for me, and it took me until JUST NOW, several minutes into working on this writeup, to figure out why. At first I thought maybe the grid was extra wide, but I've counted the squares *several* times and nope, it's not that. It's the symmetry! This grid has left/right (mirror) symmetry instead of traditional rotational symmetry, which resulted in me moving through the grid in really unusual ways. It's funny to realize that, when you've been doing the crossword for a long time, you get a feel for how to navigate a grid, and when something is different you can just *feel* it in the solve, like trying to put a shoe on the wrong foot. I get the same feeling solving puzzles with diagonal symmetry, and, as with today's puzzle, it always takes me longer than it should to realize why. L/R symmetry is neat and different and exceptionally useful when you're trying to build a grid around themers of asymmetrical lengths (in this case 15/15/15/13). And I'm sure I'm imagining it, but the grid kind of looks like a clock? Nah, I'm probably just projecting now.

Cool grid aside, I really enjoyed the theme today. I wasn't familiar with DARKNESS AT ONE PM (Noon), so it took me until the second theme entry to really get a foothold on the gimmick. SIX O'CLOCK SHADOW fell easily due to the X of SURTAXES, and backsolving to ONE PM followed pretty quickly after that. BURN THE ONE AM OIL was then immediately inferable, so although I struggled mightily at first, the puzzle clicked into place in short order after I cracked the theme (hence the medium-average rating for the puzzle's difficulty). The timing is perfect for this theme, given that we SPRING FORWARD this coming weekend, which makes me wonder how long the NYT editorial staff sat on this puzzle to make that timing work out! I hope this isn't constructor Leslie Rogers's debut, because having to wait for a specific date for publication sounds like torture. (Ok, yes, this is easily knowable, so I went and confirmed that it's not her debut.) 

I also think it's worth noting that the fill today is super fresh / generally high quality, and some standard fill came with fresh clues. I'm especially glad to see DESI clued as [South Asian living abroad] instead of DESI Arnaz for what appears to be only the 5th time in NYT history. Also fun: SWOLE (although I can see this slang confusing some solvers), SINE (which had an actual π in the clue!), the repeated clue for HIP and ARM [In yoga, one side of a triangle formed in triangle pose]. In fact, the clues were definitely another highlight of this puzzle. I'll bulletpoint some favorites below. The one thing that irked me in this puzzle was the dang clue on NANCY [Woman's name that's also a city in France]. Oh, were there no NANCYs of note worth cluing this entry about? Really, none? I suspect this was an editorial rather than a constructor decision. 

Bullets:

Favorite clues:

• 20A: Signs of something moving? for TEARS— Because this was in that top section, this took me forever to land, but I smiled when I got it
• 58A: Safari runner, at times for IOS— Because the built-in Apple browser is Safari. Clever!!!
• 46D: It gets you close to home for TRIPLE — I normally don't go in for the sports entries but this is a nice misdirect

A few other things:

• Does the clue for USED [Like most books offered on AbeBooks.com] count as a dupe of ABE? I don't super care, personally, but I know some solvers do.
• Not a fan of Jack DORSEY 
• Love that feeling when you get to 2D and it's [The Bulldogs of the N.C.A.A.] and you panic because there are so. many. [Bulldogs of the N.C.A.A.] 

Overall, this puzzle is great and I thoroughly enjoyed it, despite solving while burning the 11pm oil (which is one hour later than I'd normally go to sleep...!). Thanks for letting me blog at you for a bit, and see you at the New Yorker crossword reviews over on Crossword Fiend, or back here on the 23rd of the month, when Rex and I will (hopefully) do our next video solve, or on crossword twitter.

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

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Kodama, in Japanese mythology / THU 2-18-21 / "Giant Brain" unveiled in 1946 / Winner of nine Grand Slam titles / Michigan congresswoman Slotkin

Constructor: Zachary Spitz

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: TV SPOTS (38A: Many P.S.A.s ... or the four circled squares in this grid?) — This is a Schrödinger puzzle, where the entry could be one of two words (or both at the same time, until you type in a letter!). In this case, at four circled squares in the grid, you can use either a T or a V, hence, TV SPOTS. 

Theme answers:

• INTENTIONS / INVENTIONS (17A: Designs)
• HOTELS / HOVELS (3D: Some accommodations)
• REMOTE / REMOVE (34A: Separate from all the others, say)
• RATE / RAVE (27D: Give five stars, say)
• CARTER / CARVER (41A: Famous peanut grower)
• TARNISH / VARNISH (42D: Certain outer coating)
• ANTI-TAX / ANTI-VAX (56A: Like some libertarians)
• LATISH / LAVISH (48D: Like an Oscars afterparty)

Word of the Day: ELISSA (Michigan congresswoman Slotkin) —

Elissa Blair Slotkin (born July 10, 1976) is an American politician and former CIA analyst serving as the U.S. Representative for Michigan's 8th congressional district since 2019.^[1] A member of the Democratic Party, she previously served as a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analyst and Department of Defense official. Her district is based in part of south and southeast Michigan and includes some of Detroit's outer northern and western suburbs and most of the state capital, Lansing.

• • •

Hi everyone, Rachel Fabi in for Rex today, just in time to solve and write up this clever Schrödinger puzzle for you all! My feelings about this puzzle evolved throughout the solve and in the time I've spent thinking about the puzzle since finishing it, so I'll try to trace that emotional journey in this post (spoiler alert: it culminates with me thinking this puzzle is awesome). 

Starting out, I was confused by this puzzle. As can sometimes be the case with Schrödinger grids, I straight-up didn't notice that there was anything going on with the circled squares until I got to the very last theme entry. I think it's entirely possible that some solvers will finish this puzzle without detecting the theme at all, even with the revealer! And when I finally did notice the theme, I felt pretty lukewarm about it. "Oh, it's one of *those* puzzles," I thought, crankily deciding to use the T for ANTI-TAX instead of having the delusional ANTI-VAX show up on my screen. And then I looked at the crossing clue [48D: Like an Oscars afterparty]. And, almost against my will, I chuckled. Oscars parties ARE (presumably, though I have never been to one to confirm) LAVISH. And they're on after the Oscars so... they must be LATISH too. And then I became slightly cranky again, because I doubt that -ISH qualifier is necessary; a party after the Oscars is straight-up LATE! But the cleverness of the gimmick had begun to sink in. I revisited the first circled square I had confidently stuck REMOTE into and realized, aha! If you parse "Separate" as a verb in [34A: Separate from all the others, say], then REMOVE works here too! 

And so, much against my will, I began to love this puzzle. I think TARNISH/VARNISH is probably the weakest pair, just because they are so closely related, and yet received such an underwhelming clue [42D: Certain outer coating]. But CARTER/CARVER! The sheer cleverness! President Jimmy CARTER, who sold his peanut farm to avoid the possibility of maybe someday appearing to be in violation of the emoluments clause, and George Washington CARVER, the scientist and inventor known for his work with peanuts, are both [41A: Famous peanut grower]s. If I had to bet, I'd say this was probably the starting point of the theme for the constructor, who may have noticed the similarities in their names and occupations and built this theme around it (I'm going to read constructor notes after I write this post, so I'll hopefully know whether I'm right soon enough). Another impressive thing about this theme is that the themers *aren't* symmetrical, which I think some people might count against this grid, but I actually think this adds an extra layer of complexity to placing the black squares. Anyways, this is a long paragraph to say that this theme grew on me immensely over the last hour or so. 

Another positive aspect of this puzzle is the long fill, which is generally quite solid. EATS CROW and TREE GODS are especially fun, and I like CARTOONIST, SKI SUITS, and ON HIATUS quite a bit as well. On the downside, some of the short fill holding this clever theme together is pretty rough. I personally could live without UIE (which the NYT can't seem to decide how to spell), GTI, ITO, ALEE (which the NYT Spelling Bee still doesn't accept, last time I checked!), RCS, and, especially, the nonsense syllable KOO. Clearly these things were not dealbreakers for the editors or for me, as I still on balance love this puzzle, but I wish they could have been avoided. 

A few more things:

Bullets:

• 
  Favorite clues:
• [60A: One drawing lots?] for CARTOONIST — this is super clever and I love it.
• [37D: Kodama, in Japanese mythology] for TREE GODS. I've never heard this before, but it's a beautiful word and now I know about kodama! Pictured to the right as depicted in "Princess Mononoke"
• Least favorite clue:
• [31D: Man's name that sounds like two letters of the alphabet] for ARTIE — can we stop with these? Just find a human named ARTIE! Or refill that section!
• We got a double dose of SNL women with Tina FEY and perennial crossword favorite Cheri O'TERI
• The crossing of SELES/ELISSA may be natick territory for some solvers (SELES was a big pull for me that I'm glad to have gotten! I don't tennis, although I understand a very important tennis match (game?) is tennising as I write this?)
• Missed opportunity for a Macy Gray clue at [19A: I try]:

 

Overall, I enjoyed this puzzle significantly more after the solve than I did during the solve, which is really just an indication that the theme is extremely clever. 

And now, if I may use this platform for a brief moment of self-promotion, I'd like to encourage you to sign up for the Boswords Spring Themeless League, to which I will be contributing a puzzle, if you have not done so already! The tournament consists of one themeless puzzle, at a choose-your-own difficulty level, every Monday night through March and April, with a pre-season event next Monday (although you can compete without ever attending the events live). I've competed in the past several online Boswords events, and I can say that the feeling of community and shared love of crossword puzzles at these events make them some of those rare, wonderful times of true connection and togetherness in this weird pandemic world. I hope to see you all there!

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

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Former monetary unit in Japan / Translation of Latin phrase ceteris paribus / Wowie to Gen Z / Drugmaker Lilly / Drama that's credited with boosting sales of Lucky Strike / Dress up old style

Constructor: Jeremy Newton

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (?) (not sure, had some technical issues with how to enter the theme squares, clock not reliable)

THEME: HASHTAG (39A: Symbol formed by four crossings in this puzzle) — four rebus squares contain "I"s (for the Down answer) and an equal sign ("=") (for the Across answer), which together I guess are supposed to form "#"

Theme answers:

• ALL THINGS BEING = / SK(II)NG (17A: Translation of the Latin phrase "ceteris paribus"/ 13D: Traveling between the poles?)
• SEPARATE BUT = / WIIG (27A: Doctrine that was found unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education / 26D: Kristen formerly of "S.N.L.")
• = OPPORTUNITY / WIIS (46A: Fair for everybody / 43D: Some Nintendo consoles)
• = RIGHTS MOVEMENT / SHIISM (61A: Organized effort for justice under the law / 49D: Branch of Islam)

Word of the Day: SEN (53A: Former monetary unit in Japan) —

n. pl. sen

A Japanese unit of currency equal to ¹/₁₀₀ of the yen. (thefreedictionary.com)

• • •

This seems like a waste of a potentially good idea. There's just no HASHTAG content ... so there's nothing particularly HASHTAG-y about the solving experience. It's "I"s and equal signs. The whole thing really felt fussy and unpleasant to solve. To be honest, I never saw that HASHTAG was the theme. I thought it was just "Two "I"s in one direction, but they're lying down ... to form an equal sign." Obviously the *content* of the puzzle (the thing its themers actually have in common, the long ones anyway) is EQUAL. So when HASHTAG just kinda filled itself in from crosses, I had no reason to suspect it was involved in the theme in any way. Seeing it after I was finished solving, my reaction was "well, that makes a little more sense" but also "that's dumb, there's no HASHTAG content in this puzzle" and also "wow, I don't care." The fill and clues also seemed fussy / old-fashioned / bygone / WEIRD. Really hostile to put the first themer in Latin (?). Big professorial, elbow-patches energy. And AGASP ALAS and DO BE (!?!) all in the same grid. Did a pearl-clutching Victorian write this? DO BE is egregious. You can change that to a very common noodle type SOBA with very, very little difficulty. Then you can change WHEW (which is also *bad*, in the sense of ambiguous—I had PHEW!) to the common word WHET. Tada. SWELLS / SOBA / WHET > DWELLS / DO BE (!?) / WHEW. Real words, no partials. Lots of opportunities for interesting clues. It can be done. If you care. 

Some other things:

• WHEE (55D: "How fun!") — ... and WHEW? In symmetrical positions? More words, fewer sounds, please! Why isn't this answer GHEE!? Why!? GHEE is so much better. With SOBA up top and GHEE down below, your puzzle would be much tastier (and more interesting)
• MESH TOP (25D: See-through garment) — had real trouble with this because I couldn't figure out what kind of "garment" was going to be meshed. Was looking for a specific kind of garment, not just the very generic TOP, ugh. Had MESH BRA for a bit. Seemed ... plausible, if maybe not practical.
• MOB (63D: Pride : lions :: ___ : emus) — always hate these analogy-type clues, just as I always hate the "obscure word for a group of animals" type clues. MOB is such a good word, but this clue has the sensibility and savor of the musty Maleska era (see also the clue on SEN, why, why would you do bygone currency when you have other options? It's unfathomable). Also, I should note here that the MOVEMENT part of (EQUAL) RIGHTS MOVEMENT was not at all clear to me, even after I had the first part of the answer. Seems way, way too generic. Clue doesn't let you in on a particular cause, answer doesn't specify one ... anyway, long story somewhat shorter, I had (EQUAL) RIGHT COVENANT written in there for a bit. "Equal rights amendment," "Women's rights movement," that is how the phrases appear in my brain. :(
• INTWOS (42A: How promgoers typically arrive) — this answer is bad and also many many promgoers these days arrive uncoupled, as parts of groups, so maybe stick with Noah's Ark if you have to have this not-great bit of fill in your grid
• OMG (7D: "Wowie!," to Gen Z) —I guess they used to say "Wowie!" back when they TOGged up to go to prom exclusively INTWOS. 

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Fried Hanukkah treat / THU 9-3-20 / Sporting event profiled in 2014 documentary Queens Cowboys / Gaming novice slangily / Pixar film that premiered in Mexico / Fruity loaf with moist texture

Constructor: Sid Sivakumar

Relative difficulty: Easy (4:36)

THEME: BOUNCE BACK (64A: Recover ... or what 17-, 25-, 38- and 51-Across do) — themers start somewhere in the middle (in a circled square), proceed in the normal L-to-R direction, but once they hit the end, BOUNCE BACK (past the original circle, back to the "first" square"). So they're just partially palindromical answers:

Theme answers:

• EKACNAPOTA (i.e. "potato pancake") (17A: Fried Hanukkah treat)
• ELUSPACE (i.e. "space capsule") (25A: Apollo command module, for one)
• NOTGNIHSAWALLAW (i.e. "Walla Walla, Washington") (38A: Home of Whitman College)
• DAERBANA (i.e. "banana bread") (51A: Fruity loaf with a moist texture)

Word of the Day: BAM BAM Bigelow (47D: Former pro wrestling star ___ Bigelow) —

Scott Charles Bigelow (September 1, 1961 – January 19, 2007) was an American professional wrestler, better known by the ring name Bam Bam Bigelow. Recognizable by his close to 400-pound frame and the distinctive flame tattoo that spanned most of his bald head, Bigelow was hailed by former employer WWE in 2013 as "the most natural, agile and physically remarkable big man of the past quarter century", while former co-worker Bret Hart described him as "possibly the best working big man in the business."

Bigelow is best known for his appearances with New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), World Championship Wrestling (WCW), and Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) between 1987 and 2001. Over the course of his career, he held championships including the ECW World Heavyweight Championship, the ECW World Television Championship, the IWGP Tag Team Championship, and the WCW World Tag Team Championship. Bigelow headlined seven pay-per-views: the first Survivor Series in 1987, Beach Brawl in 1991, King of the Ring in 1993 and 1995, WrestleMania XI in 1995, and the 1997 and 1998 editions of ECW's premier annual event, November to Remember. (wikipedia)

• • •

Very busy with first-week-of-school stuff, so this'll be sort of brief, as I need Sleeeeeep. This seemed fine. The answers start in the middle, they bounce back ... there it is. I guess this is some kind of architectural feat, I don't know. I do know that the only one that really interested me was WALLA WALLA, WASHINGTON, both because it's really long (though ultimately a perfect grid-spanning 15 boxes) and thus has the most dramatic visual effect, and because I applied to Whitman College when I was a high school senior (I have lots of family in the Pacific NW), and so knew the answer instantly (and weirdly enjoyed remembering this little bit of my bio that even I had forgotten). Didn't so much like having to write answers in (partially) backward. But it was more awkward than annoying. Fill on this one seems about average, with the showy and original GAY RODEO (39D: Sporting even profiled in the 2014 documentary "Queens & Cowboys") out ahead of the rest of the pack. 

I don't really get how [AA] = ACES. Maybe it's some kind of poker notation I'm unfamiliar with. Certainly never heard of BAM BAM Bigelow, but the crosses were easy, so he didn't hold me up that much. BAM BAM died at 46. Rough. I know and accept that ALITO will show up in my puzzle for the rest of my lifetime, but I'm never gonna like it. I'm also never gonna like TIE--- as an answer, as TIEPIN TIETAC and TIEBAR are all things, and all things that have appeared in the NYTXW, specifically (today, I tried TAC). I wrote in SORT (?) instead of SAVE (37D: Action under a File menu). But otherwise I just didn't make any mistakes on this one. Got the theme very easily once I realized the front end of the first themer *had* to be the gibberish that I was looking at ("EKACN-etc."). First thing I did was read backward. Saw "cake." Got it quickly after that. None of the other themers proved problematic in the slightest. I had more fun yesterday, but still, this was better than SO-SO (69A: Meh). 

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Woman's name that means violet / THU 8-6-20 / Political party founded in 1966 / TV host with memoir born a crime / Container brand that lost its trademark status in 1963

Constructor: Derek Allen and Jeff Chen

Relative difficulty: Easy (5-ish)

THEME: GRAY / AREA (28D: With 32-Down, ambiguity ... or a hint to this puzzle's theme) — there are four "gray" squares, where a "BLACK"-containing square crosses a "WHITE"-containing square (black + white = gray, and in print and in the app, I'm told, those rebus squares are actually gray):

Theme answers:

• THE BLACK PANTHERS (19A: Political party founded in 1966) / RED WHITE AND BLUE (3D: Old Glory)
• EGG WHITE (9A: Ingredient separated and whipped in meringue) / BLACK HOLE (12D: Outer space phenomenon photographed for the first time in 2019)
• TELLING A WHITE LIE (56A: Saying "You've never looked better," maybe) / ROLLING BLACKOUT (25D: It might prevent an overload of the power grid)
• BLACKTOP (67A: Many a country road) / SNOW WHITE (52D: "Grimms' Fairy Tales" heroine)

See also OTHELLO (43D: Game whose dual-colored pieces are apt for this puzzle's theme)

Word of the Day: Judith IVEY (57D: Two-time Tony-winning actress Judith) —

Judith Lee Ivey (born September 4, 1951) is an American actress and theatre director. She twice won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her performances in Steaming (1981) and Hurlyburly (1984).

Ivey also appeared in several films and television series. For her role in What the Deaf Man Heard (1997), she was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Movie. (wikipedia)

• • •

This whole thing was pretty straightforward. Took me almost no time to figure out the gimmick, and ... I mean, it's just "black" one way, "white" the other, the end. Not too exciting. The GRAY / AREA bit is kind of a clever twist (black and white do technically make gray), but then that little bit didn't show up in my software, so I had to read about it in a note. I thought the revealer was oddly placed—it seemed off-center—but then I realized this was a sixteen-wide grid, and thus there is no central Down column and the two-part revealer does in fact sit in the center, with the two parts of the answer rotationally symmetrical to one another. With the theme being a kind of non-event (containing no revelations and causing no struggles), the fill became more important, or I noticed it more, and was bothered by it somewhat more than I would've been (probably) if the theme had been captivating. I got real mad at SML, which is horrible fill to begin with, and then the way it's clued seems to ask for a plural, so I thought the answer would have to be SMS (like ... "smalls"?) ... but it's SML as in "small, medium, large," which, if you've bought any article of clothing with that sizing system, you know is an incomplete list of options (things go to XL at a minimum, and often many Xs higher). I'm not sure how you can justify (any more?) SML as a stand-alone answer. Retire it, please. Thank you. Anyway, SML and IONE (as clued) (46A: Woman's name that means "violet") and ANA (which I can never remember, as clued) (40D: Carrier to Tokyo) slowed me down a bit there in the east. Nothing else proved very difficult at all, except TREPID, which I kind of refuse to accept as a word without its IN- lead in (4D: Hesitant to act). Literally never seen anyone described as TREPID. TREPID is like "choate" or "gruntled"—not buying it.

BLIND PIG was cool (26A: Speakeasy, by another name), but in general I expected the fill to be nicer, given the wider grid and the way two of the theme squares are buried in the corners, leaving the grid as a whole without a ton of thematic pressure on it. Or maybe there actually *was* a lot of thematic pressure on the grid from those longer crossing themers and I should be impressed the grid is as clean as it is. I can't really tell. I just know that I kept running into not-great overfamiliar stuff like ELIHU and AANDE and ONEBC. I think STET is better than STES (69A: Fr. religious figures). "IS IT?" you might ask. Yes. Yes it is. In all, I think this puzzle is fine, if bland. I mean, GRAY ... it fits. It's apt. It's not sunny, it's not dark, or stormy, it's just ... gray. Gray can be nice. I sometimes like a gray day. But it doesn't crackle and you're not apt to remember it. Oh, and before I forget, TELLING A (WHITE) LIE is inching toward EATING A (BIG) SANDWICH territory. I'll give you TELL A LIE, and, *maybe*, past tense (TOLD) or 3rd-person (TELLS) variations. Make it a participle phrase, and I start to balk. Add (WHITE) and I very much balk. You have entered the realm of green paint. It stands out because all the other themers (to their credit) are tight (and ROLLING BLACKOUT, btw, is the best thing in the grid, imho).

Take care. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. I am having the MOST annoying problem with tags in Blogger so if you have good computer skills and think you can help me figure out how to deal with deleting ALL tags that aren't days of the week or constructor names, please shoot me an email at rexparker at icloud dot com, many thanks

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French department that borders Switzerland / THU 7-30-20 / Appropriate ratio for this puzzle

Constructor: Joel Fagliano

Relative difficulty: Easy (?) (very easy for most of you, but not for me; I was so confused by the way the puzzle came across in my software and by having to navigate the grid in an unnatural way that my time came out very normal)

THEME: TWO / TO ONE (51- and 54-Across: Appropriate ratio for this puzzle?) — every across answer comes in two successive parts, so TWO parts TO every ONE answer, I guess

Word of the Day: FALL / LINE (17A & 18A: It's all downhill from here) —

merriam-webster.com

• • •

This is one of those "feats of construction" that you can shoot into the sun, please and thank you. I'm sure it was a challenge to make, but that absolutely does not translate into "pleasure to solve." It's not even that the gimmick is hard to grasp—it's not. It's ultimately very simple. It's straightforward. But imagine ... you know how annoying it is when you encounter one too many cross-reference clues, one too many [With 14-Across, blah blah blah]-type of clue, where you have to look in a different section of the grid for whatever the back end of some answer is? OK, yes, annoying, agreed; now imagine ALL the Acrosses are like that. All of them. ALL of them force you into another section of the grid in order to finish them off. And sometimes, a lot of the time, that means your first part is in the east and your second part is Back In The West. And why? The payoff? Ha ha, joke's on you, there is none. None. It just goes on like that. With no interesting fill, no good answers, hardly any longer answers at all, literally every single damned across entry is made up of 3- 4- or 5-letter bits. Nothing longer. Only (2) answers in the Downs longer than five (5!!!). Absolute drudgery. I guess the easiness is going to make people feel ... successful or good, I don't know. Most people will certainly finish faster than usual, perhaps faster than they've ever finished a Thursday puzzle. But this theme ... I can see how as a constructor you might have the idea and try it out, but once you saw that even if you *could* do it, it would be dreary at best, you'd think ... you wouldn't ... do it. It's not like anyone's going to get to TWO / TO ONE and go "Ohhhh!" or "Aha!" or anything. All in all it's just one more split-answer brick in the wall.


So a brief explanation of why my time was totally average while the rest of you were going very fast. First, I'm tired. Second, I move through puzzles section by section, as a rule. Work the crosses on answers I've already got. When I have to jump sections for every single Across, it's like being forced out of my normal puzzle rhythm at every turn. Just feels yuck. Also, my software was presenting the clues in a weird way. Like this:

I looked at "1a. & 5." and honestly didn't know what it meant. In normal newspaper layout, there's just "1. & 5." under the normal "Across" heading, so the meaning is something closer to transparent. With the "a." part attached to just the first number, I thought, I don't know, maybe math or some other weird thing was involved. It's Thursday, after all, so who knows? The worst part of the solve for me was actually realizing I have no idea what a FALL LINE is. Unless it's a fashion thing. Otherwise, no idea. None. Just none. Tree line, sure. Fall guy, yep. Fault line, definitely. But FALL LINE, wow, made it to 50 without experiencing this one. This is obviously a problem with me, not the puzzle, but it certainly didn't help my mood (which even by then was already pretty foul).


I had OMAN before IRAN (2D: Charter member of OPEC). I don't really know the term LAND / USERS. I laughed out loud at ASPEN / TREE, which is the HAIKU / POEM of this puzzle. I also laughed at MADE / ABID, which feels very "green paint"-y.* At least WAITA / SEC, as a whole, feels like a solid, stand-alone expression. MADE / ABID is just a mini ATEASANDWICH. I think the past tense here is just ... BID. And omg I struggled with the GOOD in GOOD / TONE. GOOD? Just ... GOOD? "Even," "measured," ok, but just GOOD felt vague and confusing. I've heard $100 bills called "C-NOTES" and "Benjamins," for sure, but BENS?? Sigh. That would have people wondering if you weren't talking about a Mercedes. Bizarre. LRON is always awful as fill and AIN is pAINful. With your whole grid made up of 3-to-5 letter bits, those bits could At Least be clean. But no, LRON AIN. That is some 1980s-normal fill right there. And even the two longer answers don't really do much. They're completely acceptable—hell, compared to the rest of the fill, they're two big breaths of fresh air. But your FOLK MUSIC TOILET BAG can't make up for THE slash AISLE (wow) or the rest of it.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

*"green paint" = phrase that, sure, one might say, but that doesn't really hold up as a stand-alone crossword answer

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Swaying just before disaster / THU 7-23-20 / Original airer of Monkees / Heineken alternative / Hindu avatar / Leader typically appearing shirtless in SNL parodies

Constructor: Robyn Weintraub

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (5:23)

THEME: NOW (30D: Present ... or a concise explanation of this puzzle's theme) — every time you see a "W" in the clues, you have to pretend it's not there, i.e. pretend there is NO "W"; then the clue makes sense. The grid also contains instructions, in case both your own deductive reasoning *and* the revealer both fail you: REMOVE THE / LETTER "W" / FROM CLUES (20A, 40A, 61A)

Word of the Day: ELIHU Root (6D: Peace Nobelist Root) —

Elihu Root (/ˈɛlɪhjuː ˈruːt/; February 15, 1845 – February 7, 1937) was an American lawyer and statesman who served as the Secretary of State under President Theodore Roosevelt and as Secretary of War under Roosevelt and President William McKinley. He moved frequently between high-level appointed government positions in Washington, D.C. and private-sector legal practice in New York City. For that reason, he is sometimes considered to be the prototype of the 20th century political "wise man," advising presidents on a range of foreign and domestic issues. He was elected by the state legislature as a U.S. Senator from New York and served one term, 1909–1915. Root was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1912. (wikipedia)

• • •

I kept waiting for the *point* of it all to be driven home—by the instructions, by a revealer, by something. But there is no point (that I can see). "W" is just an arbitrary letter that has been removed from some clues (I don't know how many, I didn't go back and check). I figured out the gimmick early, still in the NW, when neither S-N nor -SH-R made any sense for their clues (1A: Major source of wheat and 2D: Job that involves a lot of sweating, respectively). It was only *after* I figured it out that I saw that the "themers" were going to be instructions—instructions which by that point were totally unnecessary. There was no joy or interest or any good feelings involved in just writing in the very straightforward instructions. I guess there was some question over how the instructions were going to be phrased, precisely, but essentially I knew what they were going to say. And the revealer—well, doubly redundant. Again, I got it. I got it before the instructions, and I definitely got it before the revealer. So what looks like some kind of accomplishment—working both instructions *and* a revealer into the grid—actually felt like wasted real estate. I would've enjoyed this much Much more if the instructions were not here. Put NOW down in the lower right and just open this baby up. Go full themeless; at least then your fill will be good, because you'll have more room and your fill won't be compromised by the structural limitations imposed by the instructions. I always find instructions-as-answers kinda grim, and today wasn't any different. I enjoyed the little bits of wordplay involved in de-"W"-ing the clues, but the grid is pretty plain, and the theme, as I say, once you get it, it's gotten, and there's nothing much more to discover.


Here's a little note Robyn just sent me about the construction of the puzzle:

She may be right about the "average solver"—I don't know who the "average solver" is, but I would be curious to know if the instructions actually proved necessary or had an "Aha!" effect on solvers. It could just be that this puzzle wasn't meant for *me*—these things happen.


Puzzle felt very easy except for "OSO"—wow, that was rough. Nothing in the clue to help at all. I assume the Special Agent of the title is a bear ... a Spanish bear. But my kid was never really into Disney stuff, ("Special Agent OSO" ran 2009-12), so that little nook was way harder to work out than any other part of the grid. I also couldn't put together -CENTRIC (44D: Ending that's in the middle?). I get the clue now (it's a suffix, i.e. "ending," that *means* "middle"), but that was really hard to see while solving. Second suffix of the puzzle, which is ... not ideal (65A: Ending for patri- (-OTIC)). I don't really know why that OTIC / ASCOT crossing wasn't OTIS / ASSET. That corner feels pretty wobbly in general. I really liked "EYES ON ME!" and wanted more of that energy (which I'm very used to from Robyn's themelesses). Themes are hard! Anyway, see you tomorrow for (I hope) a themeless!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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