Wildlife that may nest on Hawaiian golf courses / WED 8-27-25 / The Prancing Pony and the Admiral Benbow are fictional ones / Basic couturier offering / Genre for Blackpink or BTS / Sister goddesses who personify destiny

Constructor: Zhou Zhang

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: UPS and DOWNS (27A: Highs ... that could appear four more times in this puzzle / 51D: Lows ... that could appear four more times in this puzzle) — grid has four circles where either "UP" or "DOWN" works:

Theme answers:

• I'M [UP/DOWN] FOR WHATEVER (18A: "Anything sounds good to me")
• 3D: One end of the day (SUN-[UP/DOWN])
• BUTTON-[UP/DOWN] (23A: Basic couturier offering)
• 26D: One aspect to consider in making a decision ([UP/DOWN]-SIDE)
• GOBBLE [UP/DOWN] (48A: Devour)
• 33D: One orientation of a playing card during a magic trick (FACE [UP/DOWN])
• GOING [UP/DOWN] IN FLAMES (54A: Failing epically)
• 55D: One tool for scrolling on a computer ([UP/DOWN] KEY]

Word of the Day: Blackpink (5A: Genre for Blackpink or BTS (K-POP)) —

Blackpink (Korean: 블랙핑크, stylized in all caps or as BLɅϽKPIИK) is a South Korean girl group formed by YG Entertainment. The group is composed of four members: Jisoo, Jennie, Rosé, and Lisa. Regarded by various publications as the "biggest girl group in the world", they are recognized as a leading force in the Korean Wave and an ambassador of the "girl crush" concept in K-pop, which explores themes of self-confidence and female empowerment. [...] Blackpink's debut studio album, The Album (2020), was the first album by a female act in South Korea to sell one million copies. Their 2022 follow-up, Born Pink, was the first to sell two million copies, the first by a girl group to reach number one on the US Billboard 200 since Danity Kane in 2008, and the first by a Korean girl group to top the Billboard 200 and the UK Albums Chart. The album's lead single, "Pink Venom" (2022), was the first song by a Korean group to reach number one on Australia's ARIA Singles Chart and the first by a girl group to reach number one on the Billboard Global 200. Blackpink has overall achieved three number-ones on the Billboard Global 200 and four number-ones on the Billboard Global Excl. US, the most for a female act, as well as ten entries on the US Billboard Hot 100. Their Born Pink World Tour (2022–23) became the highest-grossing concert tour by a female group and Asian act in history, while they became the first Asian act to headline Coachella in 2023. // With 40 billion streams and 20 million records sold worldwide, Blackpink is one of the best-selling girl groups of all time. They have the most-subscribed and most-viewed music artist channel on YouTube, and are the most-followed and most-streamed girl group on Spotify. Blackpink's accolades include several Golden Disc Awards, MAMA Awards, People's Choice Awards, and MTV Video Music Awards; they were the first girl group to win Group of the Year at the latter awards in the 21st century. (wikipedia)

• • •

This puzzle was really rescued by the theme—specifically the revelation that there was a second element to the theme. I had the circled squares as "UP"s and was wondering what was so special about an "UP" rebus, particularly one where you've gone to the trouble of marking all the relevant squares. Pretty thing and remedial-seeming rebus puzzle ... or so I thought. Also, the "could" in the UPS clue was bugging me (27A: Highs ... that could appear four more times in this puzzle). What do you mean "could"?, I thought. They do appear. Are we not supposed to write them in? Everything seemed thin, off, weird. And then I hit the DOWNS clue, which did its damn job, I'll give it that. The (second) revealer definitely revealed the gimmick to me. "DOWN" never occurred to me for those circled squares as I was solving, so the fact that I could, in fact, go back and plug DOWN into all those circled squares and they'd still work for their clues—that was, in fact, a revelation. Solid AHA from me (I doubt I said it aloud, but I definitely felt it). Kinda wish the revealer had been handled a little more (visually) elegantly, instead of broken into two parts (UPS, DOWNS) placed in seemingly random locations. But as you can probably see, the grid is a narrow 14 squares wide today (to accommodate the top and bottom grid-spanners) and you can't get an odd-numbered phrase like UPANDDOWN (9) or UPSANDDOWNS (11) to sit dead center in a 14-wide grid (or any grid with an even-numbered-square width). It would need a 9 or 11-letter counterpart in the themers to balance it out, and no such answer exists (and if it did exist, would certainly make the grid way too crowded with theme material), so we get this semi-ugly but still effective compromise—a broken two-part themer. I actually think the two-parted-ness is OK; it allowed me to have that delayed "Ohhhhhh!" reaction. But I still think the location of UPS and DOWNS is unpleasantly arbitrary.

All of the difficulty today, for me, came immediately, with the first clues I encountered. I thought you "rigged" the SAIL (1A: It might be rigged), and when I confirmed SAIL with AHEM (2D: "I'm standing right here, you know!"), I thought I was golden. But then I knew ("knew") the transit option of 1D: S.F. transit option had to be BART, and that wouldn't work with SAIL, so I tore out SAIL/AHEM and wrote in BART, which I "confirmed" with "AS IF!" (12A: No way!"). SAIL/AHEM v. BART/"AS IF!" ... there could be only one victor. Who would it be? Turns out, neither. A third fighter appeared as if out of nowhere and knocked them both out. MAST/MUNI ... oof. OK. I accept that those are the correct answers, but only because the Hawaiian goose said so (as a veteran solver, there's something very sad about needing to be bailed out by a crossword goose, but that's what happened) (15A: Wildlife that may nest on Hawaiian golf courses = NENE). After that ... nope, I'm looking at the grid and I don't see any struggle points. The fill felt iffy and weak in places (that NW corner is so-so, ASAMI is always unwelcom, ECCE and EKED are not much better, and  that "OH" in "OH, BE A PAL" is completely made-up / tacked-on / absurd (I can maybe hear an "aw...." but not an "OH")). But mostly the fill seems solid enough. Having theme material in two directions puts a lot of strain on the grid, so we should probably be grateful the fill is as clean as it is. I hope you got the "aha" (or "OHO") moment I did, with the second revealer. It was the one real pleasure the puzzle had to offer today.

Bullet points:

• 
  5A: Genre for Blackpink or BTS (K-POP) — I need to make sure you are all familiar with the movie-musical phenomenon KPOP DEMON HUNTERS, which was a streaming juggernaut this summer (on Netflix). The songs from that movie have absolutely torn up the Billboard charts, becoming so popular (with a wide variety of age groups) that Netflix decided to release the movie theatrically earlier this month, with showings specifically designated as sing-alongs! Why do I need you all to know this? Because it's only a matter of time before it makes its way into your puzzle ... somehow. The rival bands in the film are HUNTR/X and SAJA BOYS—no idea how you'd handle that slash in "HUNTR/X" in a crossword grid, but it's not that hard to see how SAJA (4) might find its way into the xword mix. The lead characters (lead singers from the rival bands) are RUMI (4) and JINU (4). There's an adorable large animated cat called DERPY (5). Anyway, this is a pop cultural artifact that is too big for the puzzle to ignore for very long. It will certainly at least be a KPOP clue in the near future. Not only is Kpop Demon Hunters the most popular Netflix film of all time, its two-day special theatrical sing-along release seems to have actually won the box office for last week. From Yahoo! Entertainment:

According to CNBC, “Rival studios on Sunday estimated “KPop Demon Hunters” led all films over the weekend with $16-18 million in ticket sales. Distribution executives from three studios shared their estimates for the Netflix phenomenon on condition of anonymity because the streaming company has a policy of not reporting ticket sales.” Some have even estimated the movie made about $20 million in its weekend stint at the theater. Apparently, Netflix’s KPop Demon Hunters even made it to the top of the box office without appearing at the popular AMC Theaters chain. AMC declined to show the movie. But those KPOP gals didn’t need ’em to send Netflix to #1. That’s two total wins for KPOP Demon Hunters.

• 64A: The Prancing Pony and the Admiral Benbow are fictional ones (INNS) — The Lord of the Rings and Treasure Island, in case you were wondering—I definitely was. Not a Tolkien fan and I don't know if I ever read (or even saw) Treasure Island. The only fictional INN I know is the Tabard, from Canterbury Tales. Oh, and the Stratford Inn from the sitcom Newhart. 

• 24D: Apt letters missing from "c--tom---" (USERS) — me: "US ... ARY? What's USARY!?"

That's it. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Popular chocolate biscuit from Down Under / SUN 7-6-25 / Mario's dinosaur sidekick / Trickster of Greek myth / Closest world capital to Miami / Onetime wealthiest family in Europe / Typical patty melt specification / Breaking maneuver / Of extremely unreliable quality, in slang / "Midnight's Children" author, 1981 / Word with bullet or toilet / Philosopher who wrote "The bureaucracy is a circle from which no one can escape"

Constructor: Zhou Zhang and Kevin Curry

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: "Escape Room" — the puzzle is modeled on an escape room (I guess—I wouldn't know, never been in one); a four-letter answer sits at the middle of the grid, inside what looks like a keyhole, completely cut off from the rest of the grid (69D: [Insert key here]), and in order to figure out what word goes there, you have to follow hints found in other answers (there are four such hint-answers: one for each letter of the keyhole answer); the "key" to "unlocking" that center lock (and thus finishing ("escaping"?) the puzzle) is EXIT ... and if you figure it out, you are (according to the puzzle) a BREAKOUT STAR! (42D: Person everyone's talking about ... or what you'll be after unlocking the lock and completing this puzzle?)

Theme answers:

• 39D: Final stop ... or a hint to finding the first key letter in this puzzle (END OF THE ROAD) [the "road" in the grid is RODEO DRIVE, the "end" of which is the letter "E"]
• 109A: Kids' ball game played on a court ... or a hint to finding the second key letter in this puzzle (FOURSQUARE) [in the "4" square in this grid (see 4-Down, XES) is the letter "X"]
• 93A: "The Little Mermaid" hit ... or a phonetic hint to finding the third key letter in this puzzle ("UNDER THE SEA") [there is only one "C" in the puzzle (in MEDICI), and directly "under" it is the letter "I"]
• 31A: Is completely oblivious ... or a hint to finding the fourth key letter in this puzzle (DOESN'T HAVE A CLUE) [the one answer in the puzzle that "doesn't have a clue" is 76A: - (TEE), which stands for the letter "T"]

Word of the Day: TIM TAM (38D: Popular chocolate biscuit from Down Under) —

Tim Tam is a brand of chocolate biscuit introduced by the Australian biscuit company Arnott's Biscuits Holdings in 1964. It consists of two malted biscuits separated by a light hard chocolate cream filling and coated in a thin layer of textured chocolate. // The biscuit was created by Ian Norris. During 1958 he took a world trip looking for inspiration for new products. While traveling in Britain, he found the Penguin biscuit and decided to try to "make a better one". // Tim Tam went on the market on 10 September 1964. They were named by Ross Arnott, who attended the 1958 Kentucky Derby and decided that the name of the winning horse, Tim Tam, was perfect for a planned new line of biscuits. Pepperidge Farm, a sister company of Arnott's, began importing the Tim Tam to the United States in 2008. Tim Tams are still "Made in Australia" and packaging in the US bears the slogan "Australia's Favorite Cookie". (wikipedia)

• • •

Full disclosure ... well, two full disclosures. One, I hate escape rooms. Or, rather, I imagine I would, and I have zero interest in them. They sound like hell. I know they are very popular, and very popular with puzzler types, but ... not for me, no thanks, no. Thankfully, this really had no bearing on my enjoyment of this puzzle. Full disclosure two: I met one of these constructors (Zhou Zhang) at the ACPT back in April! And I have photos to prove it:

[That's Zhou on my right and Mallory on my left; they were competing in the Pairs division, just like me and my wife. I don't know what happened between photo 1 and photo 2 to make us all laugh—we were all high on post-tournament adrenaline and/or exhaustion]

Zhou told me that her debut puzzle would be coming out at some indeterminate time in the future, but, if you've ever had a puzzle accepted by the NYT, you know that that can mean weeks, months, even years (though I'm guessing they don't let it get to "years" any more). So I've had my eye out for her name and, well, here we are. I'm happy to report that I had a good time. Thank god solving the "Escape Room" was relatively easy. I normally don't like too much fussy post-solve business, but in this case, finding my way to each of the four letters in "EXIT" was actually kind of fun. The letters range in difficulty; "X" and "T" were pretty self-evident, whereas the other two involved searching the grid a bit for the answer. I identified RODEO DRIVE as the "road" in question (re: END OF THE ROAD) pretty quickly (I assume there are no other "roads" in the puzzle; I didn't check), and at that point I already knew what the missing vowels were going to be (you only need the "X" and "T" to see that the word is going to be "EXIT"), but I still needed to know *why* "I" was the right third letter. I looked for the names of actual seas that the "I" might be "under" ("BLACK?" "RED?" "CASPIAN?"). No luck. Then I tried to reason backward from "I" and went looking for "EYE" (!?). I didn't consider the letter "C" as the "sea" in question until a little later, because I figured there were probably a lot of "C"s in the grid ... but then I looked and looked and there was just the one "C," and under it, the letter "I." Puzzle, solved! Room, escaped!

As usual, starting this puzzle at all was the hardest part. I totally struck out in the NW at first pass. Couldn't make anything out of [Board game recommendation] or [Spot markers] or [Toddler's demand] (MAMA?), and thought 17A: Prevailing fashion (VOGUE) might be TREND, so I abandoned the area. Now that I look, RUSHDIE is in that section, and he was a gimme, so I don't know why I didn't see that clue the first time through the NW (3D: "Midnight's Children" author, 1981). Weird. Anyway, I had SESH and that was it. So I got started in this real roundabout way, from ODS and ROSIN to PSIS and then down the side of the "lock" and back up the west coast until I hit the NW corner again, and at *that* point, I saw RUSHDIE. My grid looked like this:

As soon as I got DOESN'T HAVE A CLUE, I knew (or figured) there'd be a (literally) clue-less answer in the puzzle that would help me figure that one out. But rather than look for it, I just kept solving. Besides the final gimmick ("unlocking" that central answer), there's nothing particularly tricky about the puzzle. It's got lots of entertainment value, and for a puzzle with a *lot* of 3-4-5s, it's pretty clean. I solved it like a themeless puzzle, with no real thought as to how the gimmick worked until the end. Since the "X" and "T" were obvious, I could easily infer "E" and "I" to make "EXIT," but I still needed to know how the "E" and "I" hints work—which ended up being the only real "work" on my end (after the initial flailing around to start things).

There were a few things I didn't know, or muffed at first. Let's start with ... "toilet TRAIN"??? (60A: Word with bullet or toilet). Oh my god, I just got it. Both my wife and I, last night, were like "what the hell is a toilet TRAIN?" We thought maybe it was a toilet ... on a train? Like maybe the "with toilet" part of the clue meant that TRAIN came not after but before "toilet." TRAIN toilet. You know, like this one:

[you can't tell, but Cary Grant is hiding in that toilet; this is a still from Hitchcock's famous movie, Toilets on a Train]

I see now that "toilet train" is like "potty train." "Train" as verb (rather than locomotive). It's been so long since I had a small child in the house, the phrase "toilet TRAIN" has apparently become alien to me. I also couldn't make sense of [Breaking maneuver] for a while, since I kept thinking it was "braking." Eventually, I realized "breaking" here referred to breakdancing. Easy crosses meant HANDSTAND eventually filled itself in. Didn't know PEPE, which I'm assuming means "pepper" (?) (19A: Italian seasoning). Yes, it means "pepper." My favorite mistake came at 13D: Kind of joke ... or a response to a really bad one (GAG). I wrote in "DAD." There are DAD jokes, of course, and then, if your dad actually makes one of his corny jokes, you might respond with an exasperated / irritated / eye-rolling "DAD!" As in "Daaaaad, why do you do that, please stop." Had no idea about the philosopher at 1A: Philosopher who wrote "The bureaucracy is a circle from which no one can escape" (MARX). I appreciate (now) the way this clue subtly introduces you to the "escape" theme. Lastly, where my ignorance / failure is concerned, I don't think I've ever had a TIM TAM, but I know of them, so I got that answer easily after a cross or two.

More things:

• 22A: Its freedom is granted in the First Amendment (PRESS) — not sure what "freedoms" any of us are going to have left after all [waves hands toward wider world] this. I went through a mental list of 1st amendment freedoms and got speech, religion, and assembly ... and then blanked. Finally getting PRESS was a definite "d'oh!" moment.
• 119A: One taking the words right out of your mouth? (LIP READER) — what a great clue. Just a perfect repurposing of a familiar idiom.
• 34A: Put a PIN in it (ATM) — again, clever repurposing of a familiar idiom. No need for a "?" on this clue, since it ends up being quite literal (PIN = personal identification number, of course).
• 7D: Journey in which you might carry quite a load? (GUILT TRIP) — very tricky. I never thought of the "trip" in that phrase as a "journey," even metaphorically, so I needed a lot of help from crosses on this one.
• 82D: Of extremely unreliable quality, in slang (JANKY) — love this word. Colorful, with high-value Scrabble letters to boot. Crossing JANKY with WARTY, really ... vivid.

Overall, I liked this far more than I tend to like Sunday puzzles. I declare it non-JANKY. That's all, see you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. if you're headed out to any kind of pool- or lake- or seaside vacation this summer, or any vacation that involves a significant amount of down time, and you want to solve crosswords but do NOT want to be on your phone or iPad or whatever all the time, why not pick up a delightful crossword puzzle book (yes book! Made of paper!). I have one that I'm saving (mostly) for my Santa Barbara vacation later in the summer—it's Name That Movie—Crossword Puzzles for Movie Lovers by Jeff Sinnock and Desirée Penner. I had their Name That Tune crossword book on my Holiday gift list last year, and now they've moved from music to movies. These are relatively easy 17x17 puzzles, all of them movie-themed, with a related movie title you have to figure out by unscrambling circled letters in the grid. The puzzles are relaxing, not taxing, and will (maybe?) help you with certain pop cultural blind spots that I know many of you have (as I do myself). 51 puzzles, 13 bucks. Worth it. Happy summer solving!

P.P.S. if you have crossword-related stuff you want me to promote, just ask. I can't promise I'll say "yes," but I usually do, and it costs you nothing :)

P.P.P.S. if I told you I'd promote something and haven't done it yet, give me a nudge. I feel like I lost track of these things a little this past (busy) spring.

P.P.P.P.S. Holy cow, Zhou (today’s co-constructor) and Mallory (both pictured with me, above) have today’s Apple crossword as well! Real breakout day for Z.Z.

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]
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