Red accessory for cartoondom's Huckleberry Hound / SUN 1-9-22 / All-in-one purchase from a smoke shop / Mineral used as a flame retardant / Aromatic herbal drink / Spade with a short handle? / Hardly a lover of hot wings / Mexican business magnate who was once the world's richest person

Constructor: Timothy Polin

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (whole NW was a real bear for me)

THEME: "Food for Thought" — a bunch of apple types appear in theme answers; these are supposed to represent the apple(s) that helped Julie NEWMAR discover the LAW OF GRAVITY (116A: Scientific contribution from 98-Down, discovered in a manner suggested by this puzzle's theme) ... wow, between playing Catwoman and doing physics, she was a busy wo- ... oh, sorry, it's NEWTON (98D: Who was famously hit over the head with inspiration?). NEWTON discovered the LAW OF GRAVITY. There are a bunch of long Down answers that I think are also supposed to evoke the whole apple-falling / law-discovering thing, in an indirect way. I think that's it. "I GET IT NOW"? (104A: "Eureka!"):

The Apples:

• JAZZ VOCALIST (24A: Carmen McRae or Anita O'Day, notably)
• MOUNT FUJI (32A: Endpoint of a Shinto pilgrimage)
• GALA AFFAIR (52A: Fete)
• EMPIRE STATE (69A: Birthplace of five U.S. presidents, with "the")
• WHEN IN ROME... (85A: Start of some conventional wisdom)

The related, probably thematic Down answers:

• WEIGHTY MATTER (3D: It's nothing to joke about)
• COME ON DOWN (39D: Game show invitation)
• "FREE FALLIN'" (50D: Tom Petty hit with the opening line "She's a good girl, loves her mama")
• FORCE OF NATURE (60D: Unforgettable, unstoppable sort)

Word of the Day: TRICOT (123A: Lingerie fabric) —

1: a plain warp-knitted fabric (as of nylon, wool, rayon, silk, or cotton) with a close inelastic knit and used especially in clothing (such as underwear)

2: a twilled clothing fabric of wool with fine warp ribs or of wool and cotton with fine weft ribs (merriam-webster.com)

• • •

***HELLO, READERS AND FELLOW SOLVERS IN SYNDICATIONLAND*** (if you solve in your local paper, maybe a week or two behind the NYTXW's original publication date, this means You!) . Happy Newish Year! 2022! I hope you are holding up during these cold, dark days. It's early January, which means it's time for my annual week-long pitch for financial contributions to the blog. Every year I ask regular readers to consider what the blog is worth to them on an annual basis and give accordingly. 

2021 was an important year for me, as my blog (this blog, the one you are reading right now) turned 15 years old! [noisemaker sounds!!!!]. That's a lot of years old. For a blog, anyway. 15 is also a pretty important crossword-related anniversary—maybe the only important crossword-related anniversary. The standard US crossword grid is 15x15, and now Rex Parker is also 15! Rex Parker, spanning the grid to give you the constant variety of crossword commentary: the thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat (dum dum dum DUM!) The human drama of ... OK now I'm just channeling Jim McKay from the '70s-era introduction to "Wide World of Sports," but I do hope this blog has provided some insight, some entertainment, some commiseration, some solace, some sense of regularity during what are obviously pretty tumultuous and often lonely times. I hope it has enhanced your solving pleasure, giving you something to look forward to even (especially?) when the puzzle lets you down, and someone to celebrate with when the puzzle is wonderful. If it's also given you someone to shout at in disagreement, that's OK too.

A lot of labor goes into producing this blog every day (Every. Day.) and the hours are, let's say, less than ideal (I'm either solving and writing at night, after 10pm, or in the morning, before 6am). Most days, I really do love the writing, but it is work, and once a year (right now!) I acknowledge that fact. As I've said before, I have no interest in "monetizing" the blog beyond a simple, direct contribution request once a year. No ads, no gimmicks. Just here for you, every day, rain or shine, whether you like it or, perhaps, on occasion, not :) It's just me and my laptop and some free blogging software and, you know, a lot of rage, but hopefully there's illumination and levity along the way. I do genuinely love this gig, and whether you're an everyday reader or a Sunday-only reader or a flat-out hatereader, I appreciate you more than you'll ever know.

How much should you give? Whatever you think the blog is worth to you on a yearly basis. Whatever that amount is is fantastic. Some people refuse to pay for what they can get for free. Others just don't have money to spare. All are welcome to read the blog—the site will always be open and free. But if you are able to express your appreciation monetarily, here are two options. First, a Paypal button (which you can also find in the blog sidebar):

Second, a mailing address (checks should be made out to "Rex Parker"):

Rex Parker c/o Michael Sharp
54 Matthews St
Binghamton, NY 13905

I'll throw my Venmo handle in here too, just in case that's your preferred way of moving money around; it's @MichaelDavidSharp (the last four digits of my phone are 4878, in case Venmo asks you, which I guess it does sometimes, when it's not trying to push crypto on you, what the hell?!)

All Paypal contributions will be gratefully acknowledged by email. All snail mail contributions will be gratefully acknowledged with hand-written postcards. I. Love. Snail Mail. I love seeing your gorgeous handwriting and then sending you my awful handwriting. It's all so wonderful. Last year's thank-you postcards featured various portraits of my cat, Alfie, designed by artist Ella Egan, a.k.a. my daughter. They were such a hit that I asked Ella to design this year's thank-you postcard as well, this time featuring both my cats. And this is the result. Behold this year's thank-you card: "Alfie and Olive: Exploring the Grid":

We went back and forth on whether she should add more black squares to make the grid look more plausibly fillable (that's a Lot of white space), but in the end we decided not to crowd the jumping (or hanging?) Olive with more black squares, and instead just to leave the card as is, with the idea that the cats are exploring a grid that is ... under construction. Anyway, this card is personally meaningful to me, and also, I believe, objectively lovely. I can't wait to share it with snail-mailers (and oh, what the hell, if you are a PayPal / Venmo donor and you want one too, just say so in the message). Please note: I don't keep a "mailing list" and don't share my contributor info with anyone. And if you give by snail mail and (for some reason) don't want a thank-you card, just indicate "NO CARD."  Again, as ever, I'm so grateful for your readership and support. Now on to today's puzzle...

• • •

Well this certainly was RAGTAG. Honestly, if you'd told me just before the end, just before the revealer, that the theme was simply "apples," I would've believed you. The circled squares contain apples. That fact was obvious early on, and it continued to be obvious through five not very exciting theme answers. Once I finally pieced together LAW OF GRAVITY, I sort of vaguely remembered seeing NEWTON's name earlier, and yeah, NEWTON, apples, I know the story. Only a bit later did I notice that the long Downs seemed kind of punnily related to the theme. Is everyone going to notice that? There's no part of the puzzle that specifically highlights them as thematic, and the circled squares (maybe they're shaded or something else in the paper / on the app?) really shout "look at us!" so ... why would you look anywhere else? I guess the long Downs are cute or funny, in a dadjoke kind of way. Ironically, the whole thing felt pretty uninspired. Why weren't the *apples* going Down? That ... that would've made sense. This ... well, as I said: RAGTAG. An assortment of loosely related, vaguely thematic material. The apples weren't even hidden inside longer answers; they were just ... words. There just wasn't any joy to be had here. Further, the fill doesn't shine very brightly either. The long Downs are decent enough, just as standalone answers, but the grid was so choppy that most of the fill was short and kind of fussy, and some of it just made me shrug. ANISE TEA? (23A: Aromatic herbal drink). I had the TEA part, but woof no idea people drank ANISE TEA. I guess they drink all kinds of tea, but "aromatic" doesn't add much in the way of specificity. And what is GAS RING? I have a gas stove, and the flames from the elements definitely form ring shapes, but I would not call them "stovetop devices." The NFL / REFS cross-reference was OK because it involved sequential Across answers (58A: With 59-Across, flag bearers, for short?), but the CARLOS / SLIM answer (88A: With 76-Across, Mexican business magnate who was once the world's richest person), ugh, that one is arranged in the grid so that it reads bottom to top *and* right to left—awkward on both counts. There just wasn't much to, uh, sink my teeth into today.

["NEWTON got beaned by the apple good ... yeah yeah yeah yeah"]

The NW corner was by far the hardest part of the puzzle for me. Started there, got nowhere, and ultimately finished there, but only after struggling mightily to see the WEIGHTY part of WEIGHTY MATTER. Had PDF instead of GIF at 5A: JPEG alternative, and since the "F" checked out, boy was I stuck. Also, ew, GIT GO, ugh, bah, yuck, just no idea what was going (sorry, goin') on there (5D: Startin' place). That Dogpatch-speak—unpleasant, for sure. No clue on 1D: Cause of a jolt (SCARE). No clue on 2D: Really busy, perhaps (ORNATE). No idea what awk. country abbr. was gonna go at 31A: Neighbor of S. Sudan (ETH.). No idea that [Kind of writing] would be CREATIVE. And as we've established, no idea anyone drank ANISE TEA. I was having trouble even lower down in the NW too, with UBER (45D: Modern lead-in to "X") and SEAEEL (56A: Anago, on a sushi menu) being at least slightly hard for me to come up with. I did manage, eventually, to remember "MMM, BOP," a song that you absolutely could not get away from in 1997, but also a song that I kinda secretly actually liked. Let's listen to it now.

VAPE KIT made me wince (57D: All-in-one purchase from a smoke shop). It's probably the most original thing in the grid, but still, ugh, vaping and its related accoutrements, can we not? I'll give you VAPE, it's a useful four-letter word, but all the gear and accessories etc. let's just not dwell on it. Moving on: What is the logic behind spelling EPILOG thusly (that is, without a "-UE") (86D: Afterword). EPILOGUE ... yes, that looks right. Is that an entirely different word? Can you just spell it however you want? Is it a UK v. US thing? Hang on ... yep, looks like EPILOG is just a less common variant of "Epilogue." Looks like you can technically write PROLOG too, but wow that looks awful, I have never seen that (I don't think). I remember reading a Raymond Carver story (maybe more than one) where he spelled "cigarette" like this: "cigaret." I remember feeling "who does he think he is?!" and at the same time "that is so cool!" (I was 20, my ideas about literature were all over the map, cut me some slack). I'm not glad that Carver smoked (and consequently died of lung cancer), but I *am* glad that he didn't vape. That would've looked terrible in author photos. My point is: EPILOG has an eerie, alien look about it, despite checking out, dictionary-wise. 

What else? Oh, GALA AFFAIR ... so ... like ... a GALA, then? You mean GALA? It sounds like you mean GALA. Is GALA AFFAIR not redundant somehow? I had no idea until today that GIGI had anything to do with Virginia (52D: Nickname for Virginia) (the name, not the state ... I assume). There's apparently still no industry standard for the AHH / AAH distinction (108A: "That's the spot"). That's enough for today. Oh, no, one last thing. I think my favorite part of the puzzle was the brief moment I thought the puzzle was going to break exciting new ground; that is, the moment I looked at 126A: Defiant refusal and then looked at my grid and saw "--CK NO!" I wrote in HECK NO, because I dared not dream. Then I couldn't make HECK NO works, so I briefly thought, "could it be ....!?" But then no. No it couldn't be. HECK NO was right. Did I find HECK NO satisfying? I think you know the answer. 

Explainers:

• 41A: Spade with a short handle? (SAM)—his name ("handle") is only three letters long, which I guess,  yeah, is pretty short
• 75A: Just roll with it! (DIE)—these "it" clues can be tricky ([Step on it!] for STAIR, for instance, or [Beat it!] for EGG, say). If the answer were an expression meaning "Just roll with it!," then the clue phrase would be in quotation marks. But it's not. So you're looking for the "it."
• 4D: Artist known for his lampooning cartooning (NAST)—Thomas Nast, who popularized the Democratic donkey and the Republican elephant, as well as the modern image of Santa Claus
• 45D: Modern lead-in to "X" (UBER)—UberX is just ... UBER. It's the basic service UBER provides. I guess the "X" distinguishes it from other levels of service (Comfort, Select, Black ... please don't ask me what they mean, I don't work for UBER)
• 9D: Hardly a lover of hot wings? (ICARUS)—OK *this* is the best thing in the grid. ICARUS stole the wax wings his dad (Daedalus) was working on and took them for a spin, famously flying too close to the sun, which caused the wings to melt and ICARUS to fall to his death. "Hot wings" heh ... good one.
• 72D: Hard thing to do? (TIME)—referring to the expression "to do time," i.e. to serve a prison sentence

Good day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Provincial governor in the Byzantine Empire / THU 10-7-21 / Harmless rattler / Frozen asteroid or planet / Dispensable young beau / First soft drink sold in all-aluminum cans / West Coast burger chain with a not-so-secret menu

Constructor: Timothy Polin

Relative difficulty: Medium to Medium-Challenging (depending on your knowledge of trivia and Words I Know Solely From Crosswords)

THEME: SKIPPING / STONES (58A: With 59-Across, lakeside activity ... or a hint to the words spelled across the fifth, eighth and 11th rows of the completed grid) — evenly spaced unchecked squares spell out types of stones, three times: the stones are thus spelled out by "skipping" squares with each letter. Also, I think (maybe?) the words are supposed to be a visual representation of an actual skipping stone, touching down and then going up and touching down and then up down etc. But actual stones thrown on a lake don't really skip with even spacing, do they? Nevermind.

The Stones:

• R O L L I N G (row 5)
• R O S E T T A (row 8)
• B L A R N E Y (row 11)

Word of the Day: John McCrae (3D: John McCrae, author of "In Flanders Fields," e.g.) —

Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae (November 30, 1872 – January 28, 1918) was a Canadian poet, physician, author, artist and soldier during World War I, and a surgeon during the Second Battle of Ypres, in Belgium. He is best known for writing the famous war memorial poem "In Flanders Fields". McCrae died of pneumonia near the end of the war. [...] "In Flanders Fields" first appeared anonymously in Punch on December 8, 1915,^[9] but in the index to that year, McCrae was named as the author (misspelt as McCree).^[10] The verses swiftly became one of the most popular poems of the war, used in countless fund-raising campaigns and frequently translated (a Latin version begins In agro belgico...). "In Flanders Fields" was also extensively printed in the United States, whose government was contemplating joining the war, alongside a 'reply' by R. W. Lillard, ("...Fear not that you have died for naught, / The torch ye threw to us we caught...").

In Flanders Fields

    In Flanders Fields, the poppies blow

          Between the crosses, row on row, 

       That mark our place; and in the sky

       The larks, still bravely singing, fly

    Scarce heard amid the guns below.

        We are the dead, short days ago 

      We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

       Loved and were loved, and now we lie

   In Flanders fields.

    Take up our quarrel with the foe:

    To you from failing hands we throw

       The torch; be yours to hold it high.

       If ye break faith with us who die

    We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields. 

• • •

This puzzle is sort of like yesterday's puzzle, in that I liked it better once I'd finished it than I did while I was solving it. There was something off-putting about the grid, with its giant boxy white corners (daunting) and it's completely bullet-ridden mid-section—no in between, all black squares just shoved to the middle. Plus, the puzzle kept wanting to get Real cute with its clues, which just felt annoying. Like, I've already got this super-weird grid to deal with, I don't need your forced cleverness on stuff like MARACA (17A: Harmless rattler) and REAR AXLE (18A: Ram rod?) and TYRANNY (10D: Rule that should be broken?)—those last two in the same section, and crossing! Plus the fill gets real, uh, odd and crosswordy. This was my opening:

Ugh, carriages. I always feel slightly guilty for my oddly extensive knowledge of carriage terminology, which comes to me *exclusively* from having solved crosswords for three decades. OK maybe some of it comes from 19th-century novels, but crosswords definitely drove it home over the years (over and over and over). So I got SHAY but didn't feel great about it. Same with EXARCH (an answer only a crossword could love). I think I learned MARE from crosswords too; I seem to remember wondering at some point what horses had to do with the moon (MARE is just Latin for "sea," of course) (there are no actual seas on the moon, obviously, just big dark patches that early astronomers mistook for seas). Silas DEANE was another answer where I felt like being an old-timer really helped me move through the grid quickly. But then it wasn't always creaky and old-fashioned. NEXT-GEN had some spice, and I actually really like WAR POET and REAR AXLE and IN 'N' OUT and "ASK ANYONE!" 

As for the theme, I could see pretty early on that the unchecked letters were spelling out types of stones, and that definitely helped by the time I got to BLARNEY. The revealer didn't land for me at first, because I didn't see what the "skipping" referred to. Since the unchecked letters appear exclusively in Downs, I was oriented in that direction, and so the letters seemed to form bridges across a divide. But then I thought "oh, no, they just have spaces between the letters, so they "skip" squares ... that must be it." And that's not bad, conceptually. It was a weird puzzle to solve, but weird in a (mostly) good way. Wait, I forgot about TOPE! When I was going over "Words I Know Solely From Being a Longtime Solver," I left out TOPE! LOL, TOPE, hello darkness my old friend (52D: Imbibe). The Secret Language of Crossword Drunkenness ... I'd almost forgotten. Yeah, I guess if someone's making you eat BEAN PATÉ, you're gonna wanna TOPE, perhaps quite a bit (bean dip sounds great, BEAN PATÉ sounds like you're gonna try to use beans to approximate the taste of actual paté, and that will definitely be a hard pass from me) (49A: Vegetarian spread).

Five things:

• DRY EYES (41D: Unmoved reaction) — only in the phrase "not a dry eye in the house." Thus, only in the singular. DRY EYES is a medical condition.
• ELLS (20D: What jelly rolls are filled with?) — I get more mail about this type of clue than any other, by far. I think of them as "letteral" clues, in that you are supposed to take the clue "literally" as it refers specifically to "letters" in a particular word. In this case, words: both "jelly" and "rolls" are "filled with" (i.e. contain) multiple "L"s (or ELLS). 
• BERG (49D: On the surface, it might not look like much) — this is some kind of "tip of the (ice)berg" clue, it seems. Only a small part can be seen above the "surface" of the water.
• BOOER (25D: One who's not a fan) — I had HATER at first. I also had DENTED before DINGED (27A: Left a bad impression on?) and LADLE (!) before LASSO (26D: One way to prevent stock losses?)
• CARD (7D: Memory ___) — these are used in portable electronic devices. I have somehow gone my whole life without ever having to deal with them. Or, if I have been dealing with them all along, I haven't noticed.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Gaucho's weapon / MON 1-27-20 / Utah city of more than 100,000 / Avian hooter / Culinary concoction much used in French cuisine / Title role for Jude Law in 2004 remake

Constructor: Timothy Polin

Relative difficulty: Medium (actually slow for me at 3:17 because of a couple wrong short answers)

THEME: MOUSTACHES (60A: Archetypically villainous features possessed by the answers to the starred clues) — sigh, whatever

Theme answers:

• DR. FU MANCHU (18A: *Sinister genius in a series of Sax Rohmer novels)
• YOSEMITE SAM (23A: *Quick-tempered, gun-toting, rabbit-hating toon)
• SNIDELY WHIPLASH (38A: *Dudley Do-Right's enemy in old TV cartoons)
• CAPTAIN HOOK (51A: *Chief pirate in Neverland)

Word of the Day: BOLA (17A: Gaucho's weapon) —

: a cord with weights attached to the ends for throwing at and entangling an animal (merriam-webster.com)

• • •

This is a weak theme with terrible fill. Seriously, the short stuff is overwhelmingly yuck. Inexcusably hackneyed and tired. And the theme, sure, if you are an older person who likes remembering ... things  ... then yay, there's SNIDELY WHIPLASH, I guess, but the very premise of this theme is absurd in 2020. Or even 1980. Tom Selleck would like a word, is what I'm saying.

[every dude on this show had a mustache!]

I guess this puzzle is fueled by pop culture nostalgia ... of some kind. I don't get it. MOUSTACHES is a dud of a revealer. Also, in American English, it's more (or very) commonly "mustaches." Look it up!

So much of this puzzle is "of old." You can start with the entire set of themers. But then "I'M A PC" is old (and not even iconic, frankly), the very idea of an AD WAR, or a HI MOM sign, seems old. Even the remake of the old movie feels old (7D: Title role for Jude Law in a 2004 remake) (ALFIE). But mostly the fill just feels stale and tired or odd. A single MADLIB? The absurd "laugh" TEHEE. ATON of ETTA and ONAIR and EST SHO ETAIL PSST ACCT YEP OUTTA SOPH AGLOW SWM ALMA. The best thing in the grid is IDLE THREAT, which I had a ton of trouble getting because I had ASAP at 47A: "Right away!" ("STAT!"). Man, it really hurts when you make a mistake you would never have made if you didn't have that *one* letter in place (in this case, the "A") that just happens to be shared by the correct answer and your wrong answer. Anyway, stared at IDLE P- for too long before realizing the "P" was wrong. Weird that the thing that held me up the most was the thing I liked the most, but there you are. Not much else to say. A shrug of a theme with a dud of a revealer and fill from Olde-Timey Mediocrity Land. I will admit to being in something of a bummer of a mood because of the death of LAKER legend Kobe Bryant and his 13yo daughter, Gianna, as well as another family, in a helicopter crash on Sunday. News that Kobe died stunned me. News that his daughter also died broke me a little. I don't have anything profound to say about all this. Just trying to give context to my solving / blogging mood. Take care, everyone.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

UPDATE: On second thought, maybe "villainous" isn't soooo wrong...

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Indian megacity of 28+ million / MON 12-23-19 / Tolkien's Lord of Rivendell / One of 38 for Madonna billboard record / Biblical birthright seller / New World natives noted for their pyramids calendar

Constructor: Timothy Polin

Relative difficulty: Felt hardish, but ... no. Clock says it was very Easy indeed (2:39) ... ah, I see now that it's only 14-wide. That explains it ...

THEME: SPIN THE DREIDEL (57A: Play a game during Hanukkah ... with a hint to 15-, 21-, 42- and 47-Across) — circled letters inside of themers contain the letters in DREIDEL all spun around (i.e. jumbled):

Theme answers:

• MIDDLE RELIEVER (15A: Pitcher between a starter and a closer)
• SLED RIDE (21A: Snow day activity)
• HIGH-SPEED DRILL (42A: Metalworker's tool)
• RED DELICIOUS (47A: Popular apple variety)

Word of the Day: ELROND (63A: Tolkien's Lord of Rivendell) —

Elrond Half-elven is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium. He is introduced in The Hobbit, and plays a supporting role in The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion. // In The Lord of the Rings film trilogy and The Hobbit trilogy directed by Peter Jackson, Elrond is portrayed by Hugo Weaving. (wikipedia)

• • •

Struggled repeatedly and still ended up near a record Monday time. Now, the grid is undersized, at just 14 squares wide, but still there was a huge discrepancy between how difficult this puzzle felt and how quickly I actually moved through it—between perceived and actual difficulty. I forgot who built the New World pyramids, forgot MARA Liasson's name (Liane Hansen was causing interference) needed several crosses to get DOTCOM (7A: Amazon or eBay), wrote in WIKI (?) before WIFI (25D: What'll help you see the sites?), have no idea what a HIGH-SPEED DRILL really is, and never really processed the name ELROND, so needed all the crosses there as well. And still: 2:39. Bizarre. Didn't love this one as I was solving it, and found the revealer kind of underwhelming (the idea of mixing up a bunch of common letters like that just isn't terrible exciting, conceptually). But the more that I look it over, the more I think it's pretty good. HIGH-SPEED DRILL is a shrug, but the rest of the themers are fine, and if you think of it as an easy themeless with a little holiday message at the end, it's just fine. And they got the holiday puzzle publication date right! Today is the first full day of Hanukkah, so Happy Hanukkah to all you who celebrate!


I'm gonna reprint my last-minute holiday gift guide from yesterday. I hope some of you find it useful. Since I posted yesterday, Fireball Newsflash Crosswords 2020 made its Kickstarter funding goal, so another season is guaranteed, which is nice. Also, I've added Eric Berlin's "Puzzlesnacks" to the list. So here you go (again):

• American Values Club Crossword: the premier independent crossword puzzle. Imaginative, contemporary puzzles from an extremely talented and diverse group of constructors. You should already be a subscriber. Go ahead and make someone else a subscriber too.
• Matt Gaffney's Weekly Crossword Contest: Matt's contest is by now an institution with a sizeable solving fanbase. Every Friday he releases a metacrossword. You have the weekend to figure out the meta answer. Puzzles cycle through difficulty levels week to week, from pretty easy to Ouch OMG Help! When you get the answer, you enter it on his website, and you can see if you're right and see how many others got it. There are prizes for randomly selected successful solvers. Matt's a great constructor and his contest is justly famous. For the serious solver who wants to spice things up, this subscription is just the thing.
• Crossword Nation: Liz Gorski used to be a frequent and beloved contributor to the NYTXW, but she has taken her talents elsewhere, as they say, and one of those places is her own weekly easy themed crossword puzzle. This would make a great gift for someone who enjoys solving but still struggles with late-week puzzles—or for anyone who likes cute current delicious puzzles.
• Queer Qrosswords 2: 2 Queer 2 Qurious: Nate Cardin was so successful with his first go at a collection of crosswords to benefit LGBTQIA+ charities that he decided to do another one! It's easy: donate to one of a number of charities, show your receipts, get your puzzles (from some of the best constructors in the business). Do it! Give it as a gift! Go on!
• Women of Letters: Patti Varol put together this collection of crosswords by women constructors, to benefit "women-centric charities." As with Queer Qrosswords, you donate to a charity, show your receipts, get your puzzles. Great causes, great puzzles. Go for it.
• Outside the Box puzzles (by Joon Pahk): I don't normally go too far into the world of non-crosswords, but the Variety puzzles and Rows Garden puzzles (so fun! see the sample here if you're not familiar with this type of puzzle!) available here are crossword-adjacent enough for me. If you want to diversify your (or someone else's!) puzzling fare, subscribe to Year 5 of Outside the Box. Now. Go on!
• Fireball Newsflash Crosswords 2020: man I love these things. Biweekly crosswords that Peter builds with answers straight out of recent headlines. If something's in the news, chances are you'll see it here first (crossword-wise). These puzzles are hypercurrent and force me to have to deal on a regular basis with names I don't know—a very important solving skill to have. The Kickstarter for next season (2020) met its funding goal Sunday night (12/22), so get over there and subscribe with confidence, or buy someone a subscription, and add a newsy dimension to your (or someone else's) solving experience. 
• Puzzlesnacks by Eric Berlin: Hey, look, puzzles for beginning and intermediate solvers, particularly *kids*. I'll let Eric describe: "With Puzzlesnacks, I specialize in taking variety crossword types generally seen as pretty darn challenging, and making them more accessible to beginning and intermediate solvers. I post a puzzle to the Web site (http://www.puzzlesnacks.com) every Friday -- I want kids to be able to access the puzzle for free. But adults are encouraged to subscribe, for $3 / month. Subscribers get the puzzle sent directly to them by e-mail, and they get a couple dozen bonus puzzles each year as well."

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Bachelor contingent at cotillion / THU 11-28-19 / Dessert drink made with frozen grapes / California city whose name sounds like surprised two-word greeting / Chocolatier of children's literature / First saint of Russian orthodox church

Constructor: Timothy Polin

Relative difficulty: Well, if I'd looked at the revealer clue earlier, Easy, but since I'm stubborn, Medium+

THEME: "RING OF FIRE" (59A: 17-Across hit ... or a hint to four connected answers in this puzzles) — "Fire" must be mentally supplied to the front ends of four different answers, which form what the puzzle is calling a "ring" at the center of the grid. Further, there is bonus (?) JOHNNY CASH MATERIAL for some reason:

Theme answers:

• The "Ring" of "Fire": 
• BALLS (27A: Candies that make your mouth burn)
• STONE (28D: Big name in tires)
• DANCE (47A: Performance with twirling torches)
• BRAND (27D: Agitator seeking radical change)
• JOHNNY CASH (17A: The Man in Black)
• JOQUIN / PHOENIX (11D: With 40-Down, Oscar-nominated player of 17-Across)

Word of the Day: AUGUSTO Pinochet (12D: Chilean dictator Pinochet) —

Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte (/ˈpiːnoʊʃeɪ/, also US: /-ʃɛt, ˌpiːnoʊˈ(t)ʃɛt/, UK: /ˈpiːnəʃeɪ,ˈpɪn-/, Spanish: [auˈɣusto pinoˈ(t)ʃe(t)]; 25 November 1915 – 10 December 2006) was a Chilean general, politician and dictator of Chile between 1973 and 1990 who remained the Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean Army until 1998 and was also President of the Government Junta of Chile between 1973 and 1981. // Pinochet assumed power in Chile following a United States-backed coup d'état on 11 September 1973 that overthrew the democratically elected socialist Unidad Popular government of President Salvador Allende and ended civilian rule. The support of the United States was crucial to the coup and the consolidation of power afterward. Pinochet had been promoted to Commander-in-Chief of the Army by Allende on 23 August 1973, having been its General Chief of Staff since early 1972. In December 1974, the ruling military junta appointed Pinochet Supreme Head of the nation by joint decree, although without the support of one of the coup's instigators, Air Force General Gustavo Leigh. Following his rise to power, Pinochet persecuted leftists, socialists, and political critics, resulting in the executions of from 1,200 to 3,200 people, the internment of as many as 80,000 people and the torture of tens of thousands. According to the Chilean government, the number of executions and forced disappearances was 3,095. (HAPPY THANKSGIVING!) [...] By the time of his death on 10 December 2006, about 300 criminal charges were still pending against him in Chile for numerous human rights violations during his 17-year rule and tax evasion and embezzlement during and after his rule. He was also accused of having corruptly amassed at least US$28 million. (wikipedia)

• • •

So, first of all, and most importantly, that's a square. A square of fire. We should be done right here. Just stamp "DOA" on this thing and move on. I fell into a burning square of fires. There's something so sad about this puzzle. Such a great song, and such a bizarre theme execution. First of all, as has been established, not a ring. Just not. Nope. Not. Second, there's hardly any *actual* theme material: four 5-letter answers taking up sixteen squares total. In a good theme, we'd get the revealer and then it would reveal something ... substantial. But here there's almost nothing, so instead what we get to fill the considerable amount of leftover space is a tacked-on JOHNNY CASH theme, and not really that at all, but just JOHNNY CASH ... and an actor who played him, who is only here because his first and last names can be made to fit so neatly into the NE / SW corners. So there's a sad little theme (which is flubbed) and then this JOHNNY CASH and the actor who played him theme. They are separate theme concepts, really, but this puzzle has united them in a bizarre and unsatisfying Frankenpuzzle. I would've thought it impossible to ruin a JOHNNY CASH puzzle, but the NYT does miracles every day.


When I got stuckish, around the middle of the puzzle (no surprise), I knew that if I just looked at the revealer (or probable revealer, in the SE corner of the puzzle) I would most likely have a much better idea of what was going on, but I perversely fought my way through the fog until I figured it out without reference to the revealer. I don't think of fireBALLS as candy and I don't really know what a fireDANCE is and none of the other were *obviously* "fire"-starting words, so I had a minor struggle there. There were two other trouble spots for me. The less troubling was the SW, where ... well I've only ever heard it called "sheep's milk," but EWE'S milk, sure, I guess. And SILT clue was hard (55D: It goes with the flow). And ANIL, ugh, crosswordese that I almost forgot existed (61A: Dark blue). Even with PHOENIX in there as a gimme, I got slowed down in there. The more troubling spot, though, was the far north. I just don't accept that FLORA is a [Nursery display]. On some broad literal level, ugh, I guess. But ugh, "excuse me, where do you keep the FLORA?" "Oh, what a lovely display of FLORA!" these are not things anyone would say. It's hard enough having to figure out which kind of "nursery" the clue is referring to without this not-in-the-language usage of FLORA. LA CASA is not good fill and the clue was annoying in that Felipe VI has nothing specifically to do with the answer. He's just ... Spanish. So that was tough. Also, because I had no idea re: FLORA, and had LANES as LINES (15A: Supermarket checkout choices), I had MI CASA in there at first.

[2D: TOO LATE]

Surprised anyone knows ONEONTA who doesn't live out here (i.e. in central New York—ONEONTA is just an hour or so away) (41D: College town WSW of Albany). Surprised anyone at all has a deep cotillion vocabulary—STAG LINE??? (36D: Bachelor contingent at a cotillion). I can't even see my wheelhouse from that clue. The only thing I enjoyed about the puzzle was remembering JOHNNY CASH. I guess that's something. So Happy Thanksgiving! Allow me to leave you with the immortal words of JOHNNY CASH's first wife, Vivian Liberto, who said, "The truth is, Johnny wrote that song, while pilled up and drunk, about a certain private female body part" (wikipedia). 

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Philistine-fighting king / THU 8-8-19 / Tin has been in them since 1929 / Angola's northern neighbor once

Constructor: Timothy Polin

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (5:24)

THEME: THINK / TWICE (60A: With 19-Across, reconsider ... or a hint to the starts of the five starred clues) — starred clues start with a word that you have to double in order to make sense of the clue:

Theme answers:

• WILD PITCH (17A: *Boo during a baseball game)
• COMIC STRIPS (25A: *Tin has been in them since 1929)
• DENTAL HYGIENIST (37A: *Tar remover)
• LOGIC PUZZLE (51A: *Ken, for one)
• HIGH KICKS (62A: *Can components)

Word of the Day: PEPE (1A: José, to amigos) —

One story, I guess nobody can say whether this is true or not, is that Pepe comes from the initials P.P. from the Spanish term "padre putativo" (putative father) an old way of referring to Joseph, the husband of Mary from the Bible.

A more believable explanation is that José entered Spanish as Josef or Josep.From Josep to Josepe (to avoid a final /p/) to Pepe is not a big jump as it is not uncommon for names in Spanish to form nicknames from the last phonemes of the original: e.g. Felipe to Pipe, Enrique to Quique, Guillermo to Memo, Santiago to Diego (now a name of its own).  

From Pepe we have also Pepito (i.e. little Pepe), Chepe (that's how people called my father) and Chepito. (Rafael Nájera, in response to Quora question, "Why is 'Pepe' a nickname for 'Jose'?")

• • •

Bizarre solving experience, where I had no idea what the theme was and just sort of meandered around the grid is a sad, lost way, but not in a desperate Oh-God-Help way, just in a kinda "I know the light switch is here ... somewhere ..." way, and sure enough, when I'd wandered all the way to the bottom of the grid (interlocking answers the whole way down), there it was: the switch. HIGH KICKS. So "Can" is actually "can-can." And instantly, all the other themer clues made sense, and the Thursday became a Monday, and I tore this thing apart. Scorched it. But slow start meant just a somewhat better-than-average time. The theme is so-so (!). At times, the cluing was super-clever, with great misdirection (e.g. 17A: *Boo during a baseball game). At other times, the cluing was sad and weird, with terrible misdirection (e.g. 25A: *Tin has been in them since 1929—this is not a plausible clue for anything involving the element "tin"). What took this from middle-of-the-road into negative territory for me was the revealer. That's just such a godawful, puzzle-wrecking way to place your revealer—split and upside-down. Bad enough to get a [See...] clue anywhere, ever, but to have it be up top, and yet the *second* part of the revealer, with the first part down below ... it's so ugly. So inelegant. And so (seemingly) unnecessary. Build a grid where your revealer is displayed in the order that English-reading humans actually read, preferably with pride of place in your grid—central or final, or maybe symmetrical top-to-bottom ... something, anything, but this ungainly mess.





No clue, none, that PEPE was a familiar form of José. Thought a DOG or CAT made the muddy footprint. Weird to claim a PAW made a footprint. Feet make footprints. You're thinking of a paw print. But OK. POLER and POLEBEANS should not not not be in the same grid. I have real beef with the clue for COMIC STRIPS, largely because I think of "strips" as "those things in newspapers that are actually in the form of strips," and I've never seen "Tintin" presented like that. Certainly never ever ever in American COMIC STRIPS. In the U.S., those stories come exclusively in complete book form. In the most general sense of COMIC STRIPS as just ... comics (i.e. sequential art), then sigh, fine, this clue works. I teach this stuff, so I'm definitely overthinking it, but ... "Peanuts" and "Cathy" and "Curtis" and "Baby Blues" are COMIC STRIPS. "Tintin" is something else, imho. Remembered MATTBIONDI somehow, so yay me (30D: Winner of five swimming gold medals at the 1988 Olympics) ... but had ACT before OPT at 9D: Not dither despite already having ACT in the grid (6D: Be dramatic?), so boo me. Boo-boo me, in fact.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. 14A: Company with a for-profit foundation? is AVON because AVON is a make-up company and therefore a manufacturer of ... foundation. I'm assuming.

P.P.S. 13D: Hearts that don't beat very much? ... is a very good clue (the reference is to cards, in case that somehow eluded you)

P.P.P.S. Hey, next weekend (Sat. Aug. 17) is Lollapuzzoola, one of the biggest annual crossword tournaments in the country, and the only one (that I know of) in NYC. There are still some spaces left for those who want to participate in some hardcore, in-person nerddom (actually a very fun tournament with a low-key vibe and hundreds of lovely people). But if you just want to see what tournament puzzles are like without the fear of public humiliation*, then there's also the Solve At-Home Division of the tournament, which you should get in on. Lolla and Indie 500 (in DC) are my favorite tournaments, and the only ones I participate in regularly. So come solve and say hi. Or solve at home and wish you had. Whatever. Just sign up! INFORMATION HERE.

*there's no public humiliation except that which you heap on yourself, trust me

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