Device used in a lactation room / MON 8-3-26 / Speak at the top of one's lungs / Throw with force / Phase in which users help catch bugs / Ninja's quality / Toddler's wheels / Cosmic cloud / Rewards for excellent employees / Pavlov known for canine experiments

Constructor: Willa Angel Chen Miller   

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: Chilling — Three things that can be said to be "chilling" -- each with a different meaning of the word

Word of the Day: CROCHET (24A: Needle-working craft) —

Crochet (English: /kroʊˈʃeɪ/;^[1] French: [kʁɔʃɛ]^[2]) is a process of creating textiles by using a crochet hook to interlock loops of yarn, thread, or strands of other materials.^[3] The name is derived from the French term crochet, which means 'hook'.^[4] Hooks can be made from different materials (aluminum, steel, metal, wood, bamboo, bone, etc.), sizes, and types (in-line, tapered, ergonomic, etc.). The key difference between crochet and knitting, beyond the implements used for their production, is that each stitch in crochet is completed before the next one, while knitting keeps many stitches open at a time. Some variant forms of crochet however, such as Tunisian crochet and Broomstick lace, do keep multiple crochet stitches open at a time.

• • •

Theme answers:

• BEACH BUM (20A:  Idler along the seashore)
• ICE CREAM MAKER (26A: Kitchen appliance for desserts)
• TRUE CRIME SHOW (42A: Series that may feature forensics experts)
• CHILLING (50A: Adjective describing 20-, 26- and 42-Across)

Yes, the rumors were true! Rafa is back for yet another Rexplacement blog! Sadly this is actually the last one for me, and I will miss you all dearly, but I'm sure tomorrow's Rexplacement will be just as (if not more) lovely, so worry not.

I usually blog the harder late-week puzzles around here, so I don't have much experience talking about easy Monday crosswords, but I'll do my best. This was my favorite of the run of three puzzles I blogged here, so that will help! The theme is simple but it works. I would have liked it if the revealer were a bit more fun. Something like I'M CHILLING clued as [What each of the starred answers might say] or something similar. The first-person elevates the theme into something more playful, but this works fine too. I did find it weird that CHILLING was clued as [Adjective describing ...] since in the BEACH BUM context in particular I'd use that word as a gerund verb instead of an adjective. But that's me being pedantic I guess. It was fun that the three meanings of the word were totally distinct, and that the chosen answers captured those meanings quite well.

Some BEACH BUMs

The theme entries almost seem like an ideal vacation, really. Go be a BEACH BUM for a few hours and soak up the sun, then head home to make a treat with the ICE CREAM MAKER before getting cozy on the couch with a TRUE CRIME SHOW. Sign me up!

An ICE CREAM MAKER

To me, the most important part of a Monday puzzle is having accessible fill. This could be someone's first-ever crossword puzzle, and it would do them a huge disservice to scare them away with arcane entries and crosswordese. This puzzle does a great job with that. Every answer feels like a real thing I've seen plenty outside of crosswords. There are fewer theme squares than usual here, so it gives the grid breathing room to be as smooth as possible.

"Making A Murderer" is a popular TRUE CRIME SHOW

I was really impressed with [Surgery that leaves the patient looking better?] as a clue for LASIK. It's hard to land clever wordplay clues that are still Monday-level accessible and this one does a great job adding some pizzazz to the puzzle without pushing it into challenging territory. [Slowpoke in a "mobile home"] was also a fun, if a little on the trickier side, clue for SNAIL.

Bullets:

• BUGLE (41A: Instrument on which reveille is played) — Had never heard of of reveille!
• IAMB (26D: First two syllables of "I am what I am," aptly) — Really enjoyed this playful clue
• POKE (22D: Hawaiian seafood dish) — I somewhat recently found a new poke place nearby and it's soooo good!
• NERO (52D: Roman emperor who competed in the Olympics (and "won" every event he was in) — Another cool clue that elevates a common piece of fill. Turns out that NERO was stripped of all his Olympic "wins" (turns out judges awarded him a win even though he fell off his chariot and didn't finish his race?!) and said judges faced penalties.

Signed, Rafa

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Acronymic weapon / FRI 7-10-26 / Suffix with caffe- / Relative of a bandeau / Wu Zetian of the Zhou dynasty, for one / Speculative musings / Smug know-it-all type / Branzino, by another name / Pescatarian steak option

Constructor: Willa Angel Chen Miller

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: Wu Zetian (8D: Wu Zetian of the Zhou dynasty, for one = EMPRESS) —

Empress Wu (17 February 624 – 16 December 705), commonly known as Wu Zetian, personal name Wu Zhao, was the only undisputed female sovereign in the history of China. She had previously held power as the empress consort of Emperor Gaozong of the Tang dynasty from 660 to 683 and as empress dowager during the reigns of her sons, Emperors Zhongzong and Ruizong, between 683 and 690. She was the sole ruler of the self-styled Zhou dynasty from 690 to 705.

In her early life, Wu served as a concubine of Emperor Taizong. After his death, she married his successor, Emperor Gaozong, becoming empress in 655. Wu exercised substantial political influence even before her elevation and gradually came to dominate court affairs. After Gaozong suffered a debilitating stroke in 660, she effectively administered the empire on his behalf until his death in 683. Breaking with precedent, Wu then consolidated power and prevented her sons from ruling. In 690, she proclaimed the Zhou dynasty in place of the Tang and crowned herself emperor. [...] 

In her later years, her governance became increasingly autocratic and extravagant. She was removed from power in the Shenlong Coup, which abolished the Zhou dynasty and restored the Tang, and died a few months later. (wikipedia)

• • •

This seemed fine. This square racetrack format (interlocking gridspanners around the edges of the puzzle) is not uncommon in lateweek themeless puzzles, and it usually provides for some interesting answers, as well as a fair amount of whoooosh—and today was no different. Not sure the marquee answers were as killer as I'd've liked. I liked SPILLED THE BEANS, but "I CAN ONLY IMAGINE..." was the only one that really made me sit up and take notice. Actually FAN INTERFERENCE is pretty good too. So I guess that bottom stack of 15s was the one real highlight for me ... which is interesting, because it was also the one real lowlight. Certainly a lowlight in my own personal solving performance, but also a kind of ugly patch where fill and cluing were concerned. I'm talking about the entire lower middle section, everything due south of the "+" mark at the center of the grid. I had both long answers driven straight through that section and so expected to make short work of it, but ... oof, no. Total spinout. The first issue was that I wrote in TANK TOP instead of TUBE TOP for 51A: Relative of a bandeau, but even after I tested TUBE TOP, I was getting nowhere because of all the Downs. No way the one-word clue [On] was getting me to ENABLED. As for a 2005 viral video about Hobbits, are you ****ing serious? (42D: "___ Taking the Hobbits to Isengard" (viral video from 2005)). A 21-year-old "viral video"?? What was I doing in 2005? New marriage, new home, new dog, little kid. Viral videos were not on my radar. Nor was most popular culture, frankly. Anyway, I looked at the "---YR-" pattern at the end of this answer today and thought "what the hell kind of Elvish-language bullsh*t am I dealing with here?" To have the answer end up as a mere contraction, man, that was the disappointment of the day. You made me think about LOTR and "viral videos" ... just to get to THEY'RE? Buzzkill. Then there was the -IFS ending on 39D: Speculative musings (WHAT-IFS). I was assuming the answer was one word (one non-hyphenated word). Like MOTIFS, only ... longer. 

But wait, there's more (of me struggling in the south): HAHAS??? People actually call laughs "yuks" but they absolutely do not call them HAHAS, my god (45A: Yuks). Never would've considered HAHAS without that initial "H" and ... that was Not forthcoming because that clue on HUNT was impenetrable (45D: Proceed with a game plan). I call foul on that clue—it really, really needs a "?" (which I'm surprised the puzzle didn't use, given how liberally it was doling them out today). I guess when you HUNT you "plan" to get "game," but come on. If you're going to do tortured wordplay like "game plan," throw me a "?" at least. I wanted PUNT at one point, figuring the game plan involved football (where, unlike hunting, you may actually have a "game plan"). I don't know how long I got held up down there—maybe not that long, by the clock. But by comparison to every other section of the puzzle, I was absolutely mired down there.

Not much else to say about this one. I rolled my eyes at the idea of "-INE" as a "suffix" for "Caffe-" (6A: Suffix with caffe-). I'm gonna start pronouncing it "kah-fay-EEN!" in "honor" of this dumbass clue. Speaking of suffixes, and the -ass suffix in particular, the NYTXW's ASS Era continues today with WISEASS (39A: Smug know-it-all type). I'm neutral on the whole ASS thing. On the one hand, who cares, people say these words, they're not really profane, so ... shrug. On the other, there is such a thing as oversaturation. ASS-containing answers no longer have novelty on their side. They've been done. They're not that exciting. More of a shrug. So I guess I shrug either way—because I don't think it's a big deal and because I don't think it's that impressive. ASS away, as far as I care. I just wish this puzzle had found a way to bring WISEASS and SEA BASS closer together. Who wouldn't love a WISEASS SEA BASS? That's a winning puzzle mascot right there.

Bullets:

• 1A: Acronymic weapon (TASER) — I forgot TASER was an acronym. I generally hate all things TASER (incl. the verb TASE) and wish the puzzle would stay away from that particular instrument of brutality, but those letters are so common, so useful, I understand why TASER and TASE and TASED keep coming back.
• 4D: Things that come with waffles? (ERS) — when you waffle, you are indecisive, and you might utter a sound of hesitation, such as "er..." If you make several such utterances, then there you are: ERS. That wasn't so bad, was it?
• 9D: Ginormous quantity (SCAD) — I will continue to maintain that there is no such thing as a singular SCAD. Only scads. See also "kudo" (sorry for not getting angry about that one yesterday, as so many of you seem to have wanted)
• 5D: Short Instagram video (REEL) — one reason I didn't get TASER more quickly is that I had CLIP here, which made my "Acronymic weapon" end in "C." "REELs" is the proprietary name for Instagram's short-form in-app video production format.
• 36A: Creator of the Detroit Industry Murals (RIVERA) — say what you will about Geraldo, he's very talented.

[I know it's Diego]

• 16D: Subjects of certain reviews at Untappd.com (ALES) — easy for me. I don't drink beer, but some of my beer-drinker friends will post their Untappd reviews to social media. It's an app for discovering beers and logging your own ... personal beer journey? I think? 
• 51A: Relative of a bandeau (TUBE TOP) — a bandeau is essentially a strip of cloth that wraps around the breasts, like a strapless bikini top, but if Google Image Search is at all accurate, it looks like "bandeau" is being used to describe a garment that covers much more of the midriff than a bikini top would—strapless and tight-fitting, but more regular streetwear than beachwear.

• 12D: Relatives of sloths (ANTEATERS) — huh. Did not know they were related, but it's true. Together they make up the order Pilosa.
• 22D: Branzino, by another name (SEA BASS) — I thought Branzino was some kind of beef. Isn't there some special expensive beef dish that sounds like "Branzino"? Maybe I saw "branzino" on a menu and just assumed it was beef. Anyway, when this came up fish, I was mildly surprised. 
• 29D: Not be square with (OWE) — yes, I too wrote in LIE here at first.

[Thanks for this, Maura]

Thats all for today. See you next time. 

 Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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First-rate, in slang / FRI 5-9-25 / Superboy's crush / Roughly 62% of its claimed territory is in Antarctica / Pioneer in computer science who has a college at Yale named after her / What might be caught Red-handed? / Genre heard at many raves, for short / One-named singer in the 2023 hit "Prada"

Constructor: Willa Angel Chen Miller and Erik Agard

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: GRACE HOPPER (11D: Pioneer in computer science who has a college at Yale named after her) —

Grace Brewster Hopper (née Murray; December 9, 1906 – January 1, 1992) was an American computer scientist, mathematician, and United States Navy rear admiral. She was a pioneer of computer programming. Hopper was the first to devise the theory of machine-independent programming languages, and used this theory to develop the FLOW-MATIC programming language and COBOL, an early high-level programming language still in use today. She was also one of the first programmers on the Harvard Mark I computer. She is credited with writing the first computer manual, "A Manual of Operation for the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator." [...] Hopper began her computing career in 1944 as a member of the Harvard Mark I team, led by Howard H. Aiken. In 1949, she joined the Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation and was part of the team that developed the UNIVAC I computer. At Eckert–Mauchly she managed the development of one of the first COBOL compilers. // She believed that programming should be simplified with an English-based computer programming language. Her compiler converted English terms into machine code understood by computers. [...]  In 1959, she participated in the CODASYL consortium, helping to create a machine-independent programming language called COBOL, which was based on English words. Hopper promoted the use of the language throughout the 60s. [...] During her lifetime, Hopper was awarded 40 honorary degrees from universities across the world. A college at Yale University was renamed in her honor. In 1991, she received the National Medal of Technology. On November 22, 2016, she was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama. (wikipedia)

• • •

[23D: Emotionally complex, in a way]

Well, I won the proper noun battle today. It was pretty close to a draw, with some names being gimmes and some drawing blanks, but I managed to push through and finish this one in fairly regular Friday time. If Erik's name is on the byline, I know the grid will be very well polished. I also know there will be names coming that I will not know. Probably. And in fact, today, there were two—that's not so bad. Pretty normal, actually. GRACE HOPPER was the (literally) big mystery to me. Had to infer both parts of her name, though after I got GRACE and the "H," I really did want HOPPER, so I must've heard of her before. I think I saw RAYE sing something the other day while I was scrolling through god-knows-what app—oh yeah, here it is: "RAYE's orchestra reacting to her big finish." I seem to have missed her, and "Prada." I know a singer named RHYE, but not RAYE, so her name, two doors down from GRACE HOPPER, clogged things up slightly for me in the mideast. 

But I knew DRU Hill (I'm the right age) and moreover I knew LUIS Robert, Jr., who I'm guessing was unknown to virtually everyone who isn't a fairly serious baseball fan and/or a Chicagoan. Lots of people win Gold Gloves, every year, and most of those names are not exactly what you'd call "crossworthy." Matt OLSON? Matt CHAPMAN? Nick AHMED? Anyone? Again, active baseball fans yes, regular-ass people, probably not. But LUIS Robert is very large and very good at baseball, and since he's a Chicago White Sock, he's in the same division as my Tigers. So I'm familiar. Speaking of big-time Chicagoans, congrats to the new pope. Look for LEO XIV to be coming to a grid near you very soon (or never ... though I expect he'll at least be a clue for LEO in the near future). One more [LEO + Roman numeral] for the crossword pope pantheon!

Beyond names, though, this one is really tight and clean and entertaining, and actually strays very little from familiar names, terminology, and colloquial expressions. Very talky, this one. There's a mini drama about a driver whose car has broken down and who desperately needs assistance to get to the DRU Hill concert on time. He shouts at the passing cars, "DON'T YOU SEE!? I NEED A RIDE! HAVE A HEART!" In a grim version of this story, it would become a CRIME DRAMA, as the stranded motorist eventually does get picked up (on a foggy SEASIDE), but then is never seen or heard from again. His family fears the worst, but they hire Sam SPADE, who eventually discovers the missing man—he's using a completely different identity, living in CHILE with his dog, PILAF, and working as part of CHILE's Antarctic Oversight Team. But why? Tune in next season.

[52D: ___ flakes (fruity Chinese snack)]

I had AT ALL TIMES before AT ALL HOURS, but when none of the TIMES crosses worked, I made the change to HOURS fairly quickly. I ran into a funny double-mistake in the NE when I thought the RAJA was a RANI and, therefore, thought the CANIS MAJOR was a CANIS MINOR. So much depends on an "N." Anyway, CAKE got me out of it. CAKE is reliable that way. Mmm, CAKE.

Further commentary, in bullet-point form:

• 5A: Impossible to contact by ordinary means (OFF THE GRID) — this reminded me that I once had a crossword podcast with my dear friend Lena, back in 2016-17, called "ON THE GRID." It only lasted four episodes, but they were so fun to make. Every episode had a drinking segment, where we'd literally drink, and discuss, some alcoholic beverage that makes frequent appearances in the grid (MOET, ASTI, etc.). My favorite drinking segment by far was the SLOE Gin Fizz one. It all went so beautifully wrong. Good, silly, pre-pandemic times. Oh, and hey—the first guest we had on the show: today's co-constructor, Erik Agard! I'd forgotten that. Wow, life is ... long.
• 22D: What might be caught Red-handed? (FLY BALL) — because the Cincinnati Reds are a Major League baseball club and one of their players might do the catching of said ball.
• 36A: Fine-textured wood used in musical instruments (PEAR) — did not know PEAR. Did know EYRE. No error on EYRE did I make. No error on PEAR either. Just terror. (exaggerating for the rhyme)
• 10D: Genre heard at many raves, for short (EDM) — Electronic Dance Music. I know the term well, but my brain rendered it as EMD, which is a kind of mash-up of OMD (one musical group) and EMF (another). Whether and how the KLF factor in here, I simply don't have time to explore.

• 33D: This, too, shall pass (PHASE) — simple clue, but somehow hard to solve. Me: "... legislation? ... kidney stone? ..."
• 46D: Superboy's crush (LANA) — it's at least somewhat confusing that the original Superboy was just a teenage Superman, but then later there was another Superboy, separate from Superman, who was in fact a partial (?) clone of Superman. Anyway, I watched Smallville for a bit, back in the day, and LANA was all over that show.

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Jörmungandr, in Norse mythology / FRI 1-17-25 / First capital of Alaska / Shakespearean counterpart to Logan on "Succession" / Milling byproduct / Borg who co-founded the Institute for Women in Technology / First Pixar film with a female protagonist / 2011 hit by Jay-Z and Kanye West that samples a 1966 soul performance

Constructor: Willa Angel Chen Miller

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: CALL option (18A: ___ option) —

In finance, a call option, often simply labeled a "call", is a contract between the buyer and the seller of the call option to exchange a security at a set price. The buyer of the call option has the right, but not the obligation, to buy an agreed quantity of a particular commodity or financial instrument (the underlying) from the seller of the option at or before a certain time (the expiration date) for a certain price (the strike price). This effectively gives the buyer a long position in the given asset. The seller (or "writer") is obliged to sell the commodity or financial instrument to the buyer if the buyer so decides. This effectively gives the seller a short position in the given asset. The buyer pays a fee (called a premium) for this right. The term "call" comes from the fact that the owner has the right to "call the stock away" from the seller.

• • •

[48D]

When I solve themeless puzzles, I put a premium on the longer answers, the marquee answers. These are the things you seed the grid with, your deliberate choices (in themed puzzles, it's the themers that seed the grid). So most longer answers are there because you really want them to be there. This is why I don't understand a puzzle like today's. With the exception of the SE corner, which had a nice pair of complementary colloquial marquees (NOT A LITTLE, GOOD ENOUGH), and SHAVED HEADS, which I liked for highly personal reasons (I shaved mine just last night!), I don't get actually wanting most of these long answers in your grid. UBER RATING is probably a debut, but as I've said a million times, Not All Debuts Are Good. I've seen a number of UBER answers and this has to be the most boring. (I know UBER's not paying the NYTXW, but sometimes it feels that way). And I practically fell asleep in the middle of writing BOARD SEATS ("seatszzzzz...") and DIRECT DEPOSIT. GRANDCHILD and SEA MONSTER are fine, but not headliner stuff. I like NO GREAT SHAKES as an answer, but today it takes us into triple-negative territory with the marquees, as we already have NOT A LITTLE, and "IT'S NOT A RACE" (which is the real problem, that duped "NOT A" being rather conspicuous today). There just wasn't enough zing here. BOARD SEATS, oof, more like "bored seats." It's a thing, but not a thing that livens up a grid. Not bad, this one, just bland.

The puzzle was very easy, so I didn't have much time to dwell on my disappointment. There were several things I didn't know, but the surrounding fill filled itself in so quickly that I blew right through every roadblock. ONE is a horizontal line in Chinese writing? Crosses say "yes," so yes. ANITA Borg is somebody? (14D: Borg who co-founded the Institute for Women in Technology). Kinda sounds familiar. Sure, why not? Crosses say "yes," so yes. Same with Douglas Carter BEANE (38A: Playwright/screenwriter Douglas Carter ___). He has written (or worked on) the book for big Broadway adaptations of movies like Sister Act and Xanadu. It's true he is a screenwriter, but I only see a single credit on his wikipedia page (To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995)). He has had a big successful career, but I feel less bad not knowing him after reading his cv. Not sure how I'd know his name from any of it. Did you know who wrote the book for Sister Act? If so, congrats. Anyway, BEANE was a name, a worthy name I didn't know, and it only held me up for a few seconds, so no biggie. The one answer that really had me going "???? is that right?" was 18A: ___ option (CALL). Is that some kind of Wall St. / stock exchange term? Or poker slang? Well, I looked it up (as you can see—see Word of the Day above), and my eyes glazed over the same way they did with BOARD SEATS and DIRECT DEPOSIT (and IPO, frankly). My first guess was (roughly) correct. Commodities trading. I'm sure these answers are getting someone excited, but it ain't me.

Toughest part of the puzzle today was SUSSing out "IT'S NOT A RACE!" (6D: "Take your time!"). The clue is a totally non-judgmental, reassuring statement, whereas the answer is a highly judgmental substitute for "slow the f*** down!" so the cluing, needless to say, did not really work for me. I (mentally) tried a bunch of "IT'S NO —" answers, then at some point (literally) tried "IT'S NOT A RUSH!" before I finally arrived at the correct answer. On its own, it's a good answer. With that clue, and amid two other "NO/NOT" marquee answers, it loses some of its luster. I also struggled ("struggled") with GRANDCHILD because I weirdly insisted on making her a GRANDNIECE at first (going with NIECE of CHILD in this circumstance is an obvious symptom of Crossword Brain—NIECE beats CHILD 257 to 52 in overall crossword appearances, because of its preponderance of common letters, so the NIECE reflex just kicked in—never mind that GRANDCHILD is a thousand times more common a term than GRANDNIECE. Then there was the Great GRAHAME Spelling Adventure. I think my first pass looked something like GRAEHAM. Again, crosses ultimately made this problem insignificant.

Bullets:

• 19A: Narrow passage: Abbr. (STR.) — short for "strait" (a (relatively) "narrow" waterway)
• 35A: First Pixar film with a female protagonist (BRAVE) — first thought: Finding Nemo! But Nemo is not "female." I'm just remembering Ellen Degeneres's prominent role (as Dory, the blue tang with short-term memory loss)
• 39A: First capital of Alaska (SITKA) — flexed my crosswordese muscle here. I would've said "you used to see this a lot more in the olden days," but I just looked at its frequency chart and honestly, it appears as much now (infrequently, but regularly) as it ever did. Oddly, no significant abatement in the modern era (not so with most answers I'd tag as "crosswordese"). 
• 50A: 2011 hit by Jay-Z and Kanye West that samples a 1966 soul performance ("OTIS") — never heard of this "hit," got it entirely from the helpful "1966 soul performance" part:

• 48D: ___ Tokarczuk, winner of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature (OLGA) — absolutely loved Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead. I've got Empusium sitting here on my (figurative) to-read pile. I'll get to it right after I finish this first book in the Reykjavik Noir trilogy by Lilja Sigurðardóttir (Snare) ... and the next book in the magnificent 10-book Martin Beck series by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö (I'm up to number 6: Murder at the Savoy) ... and Box Office Poison and Miss May Does Not Exist and and and. But I will get to it. 

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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

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Sautéed-and-simmered Japanese dish / FRI 11-29-24 / Ghanaian author ___ Kwei Armah / Half of a noted arcade pair / Light lager variety, casually / Mohawk culture / XXX, in a way / Hit podcast beginning in 2014 / Mystic associated with the Dead Sea Scrolls /

Constructor: Willa Angel Chen Miller and Matthew Stock

Relative difficulty: Medium to Medium-Challenging (very challenging up top, very easy down below)

THEME: none, for the most part — there's a little two-clue Beauty and the Beast "joke" in the middle of the grid, but I wouldn't call it a "theme"

Word of the Day: DAVE & Busters (56D: Half of a noted arcade pair) —

Dave & Buster's Entertainment, Inc. (stylized in all caps) is an American restaurant and entertainment business headquartered in Dallas. Each Dave & Buster's location has a full-service restaurant, full bar, and a video arcade; the latter of which is known as the "Million Dollar Midway". As of September 2023, the company currently has a total of 156 locations in the United States, with two in Puerto Rico and two in Canada. // In 1982, David "Dave" Corriveau (1951-2015) and James "Buster" Corley (1951-2023) opened the first Dave & Buster’s in Dallas. (wikipedia)

• • •

This wasn't for me. I don't know if it's a food hangover or what, but I could barely get started on this grid in the N/NW. The shape of that corner is such that there are no short crosses at the front ends of the longer answers, to help you get started, and the first short cross I found and tried was a name I'd never heard of (not the answer, not the two name parts in the clue, nothing) (4D: Ghanaian author ___ Kwei Armah). Yes, I should know more about world literature, but still, I won't be anywhere near alone in not knowing that name today. I went through all the short crosses up top and the only things I had, even semi-confidently, were TOMB and TWO (which I also thought might be VEE). I thought TEE UP might work at 11D: Begin a hole, but I also thought DRIVE seemed plausible; anyway, TEE OFF seemed like a much better answer for that clue than TEE UP. So I left it. And eventually I left that corner altogether—for the northeast, where I finally got some real traction with RNS, EAU, AMP. Once again, it's the names that were the main problem for me today; that, and what seemed like Saturday-level cluing all over the place. As for names, "NO TIME TO DIE" meant nothing to me except as some hackneyed phrase anyone might've used at any point in history for any crime- or adventure-related anything (17A: Bond theme song that won an Academy Award in 2022). AYI, no way, PATON I know as an author, not as an "Anti-apartheid activist," and then KINPIRA, LOL, that answer was just letters to me. First I've ever seen such a "dish" (43D: Sautéed-and-simmered Japanese dish). 

There were other names I knew (-ish) but needed crosses to get to (speaking of CROSSES, yeesh, that clue (2D: XXX, in a way)—I'm not British, this isn't a British paper, so we don't call it "Noughts & CROSSES"—we call it "tic tac toe") (I suppose you could also argue that "X" represents "cross" in road signs, e.g. "Ped Xing"—either way, that clue was ???). I saw Beauty and the Beast once 30+ years ago, so LUMIÈRE eventually came back to me, but he wasn't an instant get. And I stared at -AVE for more than a second before running the alphabet, hitting "D" for DAVE, and recalling that yes, I had seen many ads for a place called DAVE & Busters that looked like the awfulest place on earth. A place designed to keep me out. Like a Chuck E. Cheese for grown-ups, which is to say, like some place in hell—one of the noisier, more chaotic rings ... maybe level three (gluttons) or four (hoarders/spenders)?  Anyway, as I said, this puzzle was simply not for me. Over and over, just outside my frame of reference.

The proper nounification of the grid continues to run amok here, with a bunch of names, including at least a couple of names that didn't need to be names at all. When your grid is already choked with names, why that clue on ARM? (60A: "The ___ of the Starfish" (1965 sequel to "A Wrinkle in Time")). Why that clue on SERIAL? (48D: Hit podcast beginning in 2014). Either clue would be OK in a grid that wasn't already awash in names. The editor should have a greater sense of balance. The geographical names don't rankle nearly so much, since they seem equally available to all solvers. Not exclusionary. Anyway, the names (some of which I knew, more of which I didn't) distracted from some of the grid's finer points. The central Beauty and the Beast cross is cute, and those wide-open NW and SE corners are not bad, especially the Acrosses. And as hard as the top of this puzzle was for me, the bottom was easy. At times, very easy. Really uneven difficulty on the puzzle overall, with NW running like a Saturday, NE like a proper Friday, SE more like a Wednesday (KINPIRA notwithstanding), and SW like a Monday (done in seconds—never even saw the clues on ARM or RIA). In short, liked the Acrosses in the NW and SE, liked the Beauty and the Beast conceit, but didn't really groove on the much of the connective tissue, which I found sloggy, namey, oddly clued. The whole experience was less whoosh-whoosh than tromp-tromp-tromp. 

Bullet points:

• 21A: Chemistry research centers? (NUCLEI) — I learned about the components of cells in Biology, not Chemistry, but the clue is still kind of cute. (Forgot there are two kinds of NUCLEI—cellular (which I was thinking of) and atomic (which the clue was referring to))
• 43D: Sautéed-and-simmered Japanese dish (KINPIRA) — I'm writing a note about this in the hopes that it helps me remember (this worked once with BIRYANI, which you can also spell BIRIYANI; see, I remembered that too!):

Kinpira (金平) is a Japanese side dish, usually made of root vegetables that have been sautéed and simmered. The most common variety is kinpira gobō, or braised burdock root. Other vegetables used include carrots, lotus root; skins of squash such as kabocha, mushrooms or broccoli; and seaweeds such as arame and hijiki. Other foods including tofu, capsicums, wheat gluten (namafu); chicken thigh, pork, and beef. // The simmering sauce is made up of soy sauce, mirin, sugar, and chili peppers. // Kinpira is named after the son of Kintarō, a Japanese folk hero. (!?) (wikipedia)

• 34A: Mystic associated with the Dead Sea Scrolls (ESSENE) — ancient answer that is also ancient crosswordese. All super-common letters. A real crutch. If you've never encountered the ESSENEs before, commit that name to memory, you'll see it again. Its convenient letters ensure that it will show up in grids, maybe not frequently, but forever and ever.
• 42A: They might be down for a ski trip (PARKAS) — A "down" pun clue. "Down" here = insulation provided by goose (or other waterfowl) feathers.
• 57A: Ones receiving free room and board, for short (RAS) — Resident Assistants. Student overseers of college dormitories. 
• 9D: Bore (HAD) — think "___ children"
• 12D: One whose hard work is showing? (REALTOR) — They "show" properties. 
• 25A: Light lager variety, casually (PILS) — short for "pilsner." I guess it's reasonably common among beer aficionados. Seems like a horrible cute-ified abbrev. to let loose on the grid, but someone debuted it in 2023 so now you're gonna see it forever.
• 39D: Piece of a children's book, perhaps (FLAP) — totally inscrutable to me. I was picturing illustrations, pop-up features, maybe tactile features like in Pat the Bunny, but FLAP, well, you got me there. I'm sure there are, in fact, FLAPs in children's books—you lift them, you find things, etc.—but that's not really a front-of-the-brain "piece of a children's book" for me.
• 31A: Mohawk culture (PUNK) — really thought this was going to have a Native American frame of reference, but then I live near Mohawk country. But the "Mohawk" in question here is the haircut, which is iconically associated with PUNK rock "culture."

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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