Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle

Constructor: John Guzzetta and Michael Hawkins

Relative difficulty: Medium (8-ish?)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: PICARDY (42D: Historic region of northern France) —

A historical region of northern France [🙁] bordering on the English Channel. The name was first used in the 1200s for a number of small feudal holdings. Picardy was contested by France and England during the Hundred Years' War and became part of the French crown lands in 1477.

• • •

I psyched myself up before this one and really, actively tried to like it, and for a while, things were pretty OK, but then the eastern part of the puzzle happened and my good will got depleted fast. It annoys me no end when editorial cutesiness results in actually bad cluing. Like, you want to use [Kismet] twice ... why? What is cute or interesting about that? The only thing that leads to is a very misleading and totally inapt clue for LOTINLIFE, which is already super-dated-sounding and hard to parse. FATE, yes, great, I got that, but LOTINLIFE has a tonal quality that is so much more downbeat than the word "kismet" suggests. FATE can kinda swing either way, but "kismet" swings up and LOTINLIFE swings down. I can't imagine the former in a negative context on the latter in a positive one. That answer next to EVEN TENOR (ugh) was just brutal for me to put together. I had the EVEN and still no idea what was supposed to go after it. I blame ANT, which ... again, why are you so enamored of this "same clue for two answers" baloney. [Ones seeking table scraps, maybe] works great for PET DOGS, but for ANT, gah, stop, what are you doing? I mean, sure, ants will eat any food. You are being dishonest about the nature of the word "scrap" here with your stupid ANT clue.

Plié

DIP

A plié is a DIP since when? Those are drastically different dance terms. Yes, a plié involves bending the knees and thus, uh, lowering your torso, generally, but that ain't a DIP. I had PAS in there, which is at least a balletic term. DIP, shmip, my god. PICARDY I didn't know at all—"historic region" strikes me as pretty vague. Also pretty obscure. Hasn't been in the grid for *twenty-five years*. Speaking of stuff that hasn't been in the grid for over two decades: ODELET (36D: Short lyric poem) (last seen in 1998). Honestly, that answer is so dumb I couldn't believe it was real as I was writing it in. I have a Ph.D. in English and somehow missed the ODELET form entirely. It's so obscure and so phony that google refuses to believe I want information about it, insisting that I must have simply misspelled / typo'd the word "delete"; fitting, as I would like to "delete"ODELET from this grid (and all future grids)

I like the answer ELDERLAW because I like the show "Better Call Saul," and the main character, Jimmy McGill, works (memorably) in the field of ELDERLAW for a while (58A: Field with estate planning). Still, that was a hard answer for me to turn up. Same with WET. And CALF, ugh. FLOE and BERG fit there too (54A: Detached piece of ice). Wanted HAM-FISTED before HAM-HANDED (34D: All thumbs). Oh, really struggled with [Red cents?] for DEBT and [A, as in April?] for SCHEDULE. That [A, as in April?] clue is a bit of a thinker—SCHEDULE A is used for itemized deductions when you file your taxes, which are due in ... April. Man I wish I liked financial humor more. The puzzle played kinda old, with its watch FOBs and ODELETs and "ERI tu" and this ALLAN what's his name (49D: Actor Lane who voiced Mister Ed). This puzzle probably still uses HOTMAIL (11D: Predecessor of Outlook). There's some perfectly fine stuff in this grid, and YOU HAD TO BE THERE is a very nice centerpiece, but the offness of a few answers really interfered with the pleasurableness of the whole solve. I really expect the NYTXW themelesses to be better than just OK.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. Ollivanders is not "in fantasy" (50A: Purchases at Ollivanders, in fantasy)—it's specifically in the Harry Potter universe. Own your J.K. Rowling content! "In fantasy" is a dodge.

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Constructor: Wyna Liu

Relative difficulty: Medium (Medium-Challenging if, like me, you've a had a drink) (10:50)

THEME: "DOUBLES PLAY"— familiar phrases where double letters have replaced parts of words—the letters are meant to be uttered as letters. Thus:

Theme answers:

TRAPPARTISTS ("-peze") (22A: *Performers who set the bar high?)
CC THE DAY ("seize") (24A: *Go-getter's maxim)
DIZZCONTROL ("-sease") (39A: *Public health agency's mission)
STRIPTT ("tease") (48A: *Feature of a Chippendales show)
AMUUMENTPARKS ("-use") (67A: *Places for coasters)
CLOCKYY ("-wise") (84A: *How to screw in a light bulb)
OLDDSTATION ("-dies") (91A: *What keeps up standards in the radio business?)
GGLOUISE ("jeez") (110A: *"Holy moly!")
SURPRIIPARTY ("-ise") (114A: *Occasion for hiding in the dark)

Word of the Day: ELAINE Welteroth (103A: Author/magazine editor Welteroth) —

Elaine Marie Welteroth (born December 10, 1986) is an American journalist, editor^[2]and New York Times best-selling author. In April 2016, Welteroth was named editor-in-chief of Teen Vogue, making her the second person of African-American heritage in Condé Nast's 107-year history to hold such a title. Her promotion to editor at age 29 makes her the second youngest editor in Condé Nast history, behind current Teen Vogue EIC Lindsay Peoples Wagner who was 28 when she started in the role in Condé Nast.When she became beauty director of Teen Vogue in 2012, Welteroth was the first person of African-American heritage to serve in the role. She is credited for the notable increase of Teen Vogue coverage of politics and social justice, encouraging readers to become civically engaged, specifically during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Under Welteroth's leadership of Teen Vogue's shifting format, the magazine developed its first YouTube channel, featuring content on diverse subjects from campus style to cultural appropriation. The final print edition of Teen Vogue was December 2017.
On January 11, 2018, Welteroth resigned from Teen Vogue and moved to California and signed with CAA. In June 2019 her memoir, More Than Enough: Claiming space for who you are (no matter what they say), was published by Viking. (wikipedia)

• • •

Got TRAPPARTISTS and didn't stop to think about it much. My main thought was "OK, the "eze" part went somewhere ... didn't turn the corner or go anywhere visible, so ... I dunno ... 'P' seems to be standing in for 'eze' ... just keep going, I'm sure it'll become clear. Then I got DIZZ- and had no idea what I could be looking at there. Then finally got into a mess in the NE corner and just *knew* it was "seize the day," and I had the one "C" so ... boom, two "C"s, "Cs The Day," nailed it. Then DI(Zs) CONTROL became obvious and none of the themers were very hard from then on out (though I wanted to write in SURPRISE PARTT at first; gotta read the clues carefully!). And I don't know, I kinda liked this theme. Actually, I think it was just fine. It's a simple and cute gimmick, nothing flashy, but there are different double letters every time, and discovering those letters was kinda fun. I think my bar for Sundays is just Don't Face Plant / Don't Exhaust Me, and this puzzle managed to clear that bar / those bars. The fill struck me as at or above average, so for the first time in a while, I mostly enjoyed a Sunday puzzle.

Today may be the only time I've ever thought "hey, why aren't these two answers cross-referenced?" I'm talking about OSSIE Davis (8D: National Medal of Arts winner Davis) and Ruby DEE (46A: Actress and civil rights activist Ruby ___) both being in the puzzle, so close they're almost touching, but with no indication in either clue that they were married. For *57* years! Iconic couple! I'm not mad that their clues weren't linked, but if ever there was a time to link clues in a way that didn't seem annoying or forced, this was it! The NE was important because that's where I first grokked the theme, but it was also a tumultuous and tough corner. I've heard of pressing the panic *button*, but PANICBAR, less so (11A: Something pressed in an emergency). ARCSEC ... yeesh, trig abbrs. are always guesswork for me, and that one I haven't seen in forever. In fact, this is the first time it's ever appeared in a NYTXW. Ever. Ever ever. Speaking of repeated-word phrases: LIKE LIKE! It's very apt, and I one-like like it, but man it was hard for me to get. The whole interconnected set from LIKELIKE through ELAINE (never heard of her) down CITRON (barely heard of it) into INO (thought it was -ITO), really took some effort. Ooh, and ROS is down there too, ick. ROS and NERTS are probably the only moments where I winced—very crosswordesey. But I didn't recoil in horror anywhere else, so that's pretty good, esp. for a Sunday-sized puzzle.

My Kiwi wife and I both botched the Maori mythology clue. We both (it turns out, I just learned) wrote in MAUI, who is really important in Maori mythology ... just not the "first man," I guess. Neither of us had any idea that a TIKI was anything other than a totem or figure. I made things especially difficult on myself by abandoning that part of the puzzle to solve other parts, and then, on coming back, not relooking at the clues and completely misremembering which was the Maori answer. So ... when I came back, my brain had the Maori mythology clue in mind, but kept trying to make it work for 53-Down! I had HO-RU and that terminal "U" seemed plausibly Maori, and then when I got HOWRU I thought "that can't be right, there'd never be a 'W' there in Maori, and who the hell is supposed to know that anyway. HOWRU!? Who the hell was HOWRU!?" And then a few seconds later I learned about TIKI and realized that HOWRU was HOW space R space U (the answer to the textspeak clue). HOWRU is now one of my personal gods. Not a big fan of that answer as "textspeak" but I now believe in the divine, destructive power of the god HOWRU, hallowed be Its name.

Hey, you should know that JASA (Jewish Association for Services for the Aged) is having an online crossword fundraising event, Wednesday, July 29, from 7-8:30pm EDT. You may know JASA from their crossword classes, which regularly construct puzzles that appear in the NYTXW. You've solved them, I'm sure of it! They've had puzzles published nineteen times! Anyway, this virtual event will be an "up-close look at crosswords with the puzzlemasters themselves, featuring the Times's Will Shortz." For more information and to purchase tickets, please go here. And have a happy Sunday, everyone.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor: Alex Eaton-Salners

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (?) (3:14) (20 seconds over my average ... 20 seconds on a Monday is a lot)

THEME: ???— RIGHT and LEFT, and then FRONT and BACK, I have no idea what is being documented / illustrated / celebrated here, and I honestly don't care

Theme answers:

RIGHT ON THE MONEY (17A: Exact)
LEFT IN THE LURCH (31A: Abandoned and helpless)
FRONT OF THE LINE (37A: Where someone who goes next is standing)
"BACK TO THE FUTURE" (57A: Classic Michael J. Fox movie)

Word of the Day: NARWHAL (1D: Tusked marine mammal) —

The narwhal or narwhale (Monodon monoceros) is a medium-sized toothed whale that possesses a large "tusk" from a protruding canine tooth. It lives year-round in the Arctic waters around Greenland, Canada, and Russia. It is one of two living species of whale in the familyMonodontidae, along with the beluga whale. The narwhal males are distinguished by a long, straight, helical tusk, which is an elongated upper left canine. The narwhal was one of many species described by Carl Linnaeus in his publication Systema Naturae in 1758. (wikipedia)

• • •

If you're gonna make things a *little* tougher than usual on a Monday there better be a Pay Off and man was there not one. There's nothing playful or fun or even coherent about this themer set. FRONT OF THE LINE isn't even a particularly solid phrase. Why are we being subjected to this half-assed stab at whimsy? Am I supposed to ooh and aah at the fact that they all have prepositional phrases in them. Thrill to the wonders of ON THE, swoon at the litheness of IN THE ... I have no idea why a puzzle like this makes the cut? Are you telling me that in the 6000 submissions you brag about getting every year there aren't Monday puzzles, maybe by women (?) that are At Least as good as this? Or better? There's a group of male constructors who just take up space and don't offer much else. Don't seem very thoughtful about the quality or inclusiveness of their fill, don't seem interested in doing much besides putting forth merely passable product. The question is: why does it keep getting accepted? I mean, where's the wow here, Best Puzzle On the Planet? Is it ARFS? LIL? HERA crossing HORA? EVIE? DHL? ANO? Stop me when I hit it. HEH? Must be HEH. Who Doesn't Love a Laugh Syllable!? LEHI? KPH? AMIE? H-BOMB? HAHAS? ALFA? IWO? ETTE? OPS? [continues listing fill until he nods off...]

Big open corners made it harder to navigate this one as quickly as I do most Mondays—which would be *fine* if the theme or fill was good. But the theme, as we've established, was a gigantic nothing. So then the question is: does the fill offset the thematic weakness? And the answer is just no. See the list I ended the last paragraph with. See also the fact that NARWHAL and ICECUBE and maybe FLUSHOT were the only answers I kinda sorta liked. I also just like the word DISHY, so that was fun. But not fun enough to offset the harder-than-usualness of the puzzle and the irksome non-theme and the overall low quality of the fill. HANDVAC? What? I can't get excited about that. Just can't. I hate poker, so your "ideal poker" blah blah blah was nothing to me (ACE HIGH). LEHI, again, what? I cannot keep all the four-letter Biblical places straight. NO CARBS remains absolutely not a thing. Not at all a thing. Forget "ketosis," you literally cannot avoid eating all carbs, stop perpetrating this dumb mythological dumbness on society. You can go extremely, stupidly low, but "NO"? No. That = death. Stop. Even meat contains some carbs. Ugh. There's nothing non-annoying about the puzzle today? I'm going to redo Wyna Liu's puzzle from yesterday, because it has the playful energy I *expect* to see on a Monday. I hope Tuesday out-Mondays Monday. Stop the Mediocre Crossword Boys Club!!!! If you insist on mediocrity, surely women can do that as well as men. S u r e l y!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor: Zhouqin Burnikel

Relative difficulty: Easy (3:09)

THEME: twenty twenty— Differently punctuated variations provide all the theme clues:

Theme answers:

TIE SCORE (16A: 20-20, e.g.)
NEWS MAGAZINE (23A: "20/20," e.g.)
RATIO (40A: 20:20, e.g.)
VISUAL ACUITY (52A: 20/20, e.g.)
LEAP YEAR (65A: 2020, e.g.)

Word of the Day: LO MEIN (67A: Chinese noodle dish) —

: a Chinese dish consisting of sliced vegetables, soft noodles, and usually meat or shrimp in bite-size pieces stir-fried in a seasoned sauce (merriam-webster.com)

• • •

The theme concept is very cute and clever. The theme answers themselves aren't exactly scintillating, but that's OK; the fill is clean enough and the theme concept strong enough to make the solving experience sufficiently enjoyable. VISUAL ACUITY is definitely the wobbliest of the set, in that it reads more like a clue than an answer. It's got a definite green-paint vibe (i.e. it's a phrase you might say in ordinary conversation but it doesn't really seem strong enough to be a stand-alone answer). It's also the themer I had the most trouble with (though not too much trouble, to be honest). Did this one faster than, and enjoyed this one Much more than, Monday's puzzle. Would've loved to have seen this one yesterday and yesterday's not at all ever. But a belated Monday is better than no Monday. I feel like Tuesday has at least partially paid Monday's debt. I don't know if I was ALL FIRED UP about this one, but I definitely thought "WHAT A SHAME" about yesterday's. You get the picture. The only irksome part of today's for me was the SE corner, specifically OMBRÉ, about which I know nothing (though I can tell it's etymologically related to the French and Latin words for 'shade' or 'shadow' ... when I google [french ombre] I get pictures of people's (finger and toe) nails! Looks like OMBRÉ *hair* is when the lower part of the hair is lighter in color than the rest of it.

I'd probably prefer a real human DIEGO and not some ancillary animated character (15D: Dora the Explorer's cousin), but that's OK—I got him pretty easily from crosses. ["C'mon, man"] is a very reasonable clue for "DUDE..." if you say the answer with the proper intonation, but because the proper intonation is required, it's actually a pretty hard clue. I had WHAT- and then just No Idea what could come next at 29D: Comment made while shaking the head ("WHAT A SHAME"), so had to work the crosses through there. Got AUTOPEN solely because I had seen *and* complained about it recently (don't let anyone tell you complaining serves no purpose—it's mnemonic, apparently!). I wouldn't watch "Dancing with the Stars" if ... well, I just wouldn't, ever, is the point. I think I know ERIN Andrews from ESPN (?) but the "Dancing..." clue meant nothing to me, and RAKE was also hard (60D: Tool by a golf bunker) (I hate golf more than "Dancing..."— in hell, the only thing on TV is "Golfing with the Stars"). And RAKE and ERIN ran through OMBRÉ, so, yeah, by far that was the roughest part of the grid for me. But not really rough at all. Hope you liked this one. See you tomorrow!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. I saw a great blue heron today and yesterday I saw a bald ****ing eagle! When the world gets me down (so, every day), I walk to the river and just stand there and see what's up. So much bird business! I love how little they care about me!

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Constructor: Peter A. Collins

Relative difficulty: Easy (3:42)

THEME: periodic table stuff — themers are phrases where the first word contains a chemical symbol for an element and the last word contains the element itself:

Theme answers:

PAUL GOLDSCHMIDT (17A: Six-time All-Star for the Arizona Diamondbacks (2013-18))
MILITARY JARGON (27A: "Moonbeam," for a flashlight, e.g.)
"ISN'T IT EXCITING?" (43A: "Are you as jazzed as I am?")
SAFE ENVIRONMENT (57A: People are protected when they're in it)

Word of the Day: Taraji P. HENSON (23A: Taraji P. ___, star of "Hidden Figures") —

Taraji Penda Henson (/təˈrɑːdʒi/ tə-RAH-jee; born September 11, 1970) is an American actress and author. She studied acting at Howard University and began her Hollywood career in guest roles on several television shows before making her breakthrough in Baby Boy (2001). She received praise for her performances as a prostitute in Hustle & Flow (2005), for which she received a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture nomination; and as a single mother of a disabled child in David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button(2008), for which she received Academy Award, SAG Award and Critics Choice Award nominations for Best Supporting Actress. In 2010 she appeared in the action comedy Date Night, and co-starred in the remake of The Karate Kid. (wikipedia)

• • •

This just feels so old and tired. I mean, it does what it does ... there it is. But periodic table "humor" is just about the oldest puzzle gimmick there is. This one has certain restrictions that make it, perhaps, harder to execute, but a slightly elegant feature in a dull theme doesn't really drag it out of dullsville. I enjoyed seeing PAUL GOLDSCHMIDT, who is criminally under-famous (outside of baseball fandom) given how good he has been (he's on the Cardinals now), but as for the puzzle overall ... "ISN'T IT EXCITING?" No, it is not. I think this is a familiar theme type with (over-) familiar fill, but as for why it's being run now, when there are (allegedly) thousands and thousands of submissions to choose from, I am AT A LOSS. Feels very Boys Clubbish. Competent (male) constructor, has a ton of bylines, very familiar, very snug, very over-the-plate. When I see stale-ish puzzles from familiar (male) names, I get a little (lot) annoyed. Like, this can't be *it*. Periodic Table shenanigans Part The Forty-Seventh can't be it. And when BUM LEG (which is ... kind of a downer) is your most original non-theme fill, something's wrong. You're not trying hard enough. Also when you have "NO" in two answers and (much worse) "INTO" (!?) in two answers, in the same grid, you are definitely not trying hard enough. Or not paying attention.

When I know that older white guys are the ones making the puzzle, seeing POPO in there makes me cringe. And ... that whole corner ... it's so tear-it-all-out-able. ENL? OMANI?? What are you trying to accomplish up there? And then coming out of there is DIG INTO, which is fine on its own, but which today blatantly and jarringly dupes the INTO in RIP INTO. Then OSSA. Then ISL, LCD, ELSA, EINS LPNS IMPEI AMINO ... it's just brutal, the subpar fill. OMANI AMINO! Hey, anagrams. (Finding anagrams of crosswordese is the only way I'm having fun right now). OOP STET ... I'll stop, but you see, right? This isn't just "ho hum" (solid "ho hum" is fine if the theme rules and there are a few good non-themers); it's below ho-hum. Belo-hum. Please, no-hum. RHOS ASST? It's like no one actually cared to polish this thing. Just autofill it and send it in! Not a lot more to say about this one. Except good night.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor: Robyn Weintraub

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (5:23)

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

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

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

• • •

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

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

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

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

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor: Grant Thackray

Relative difficulty: Easyish (5:18)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: EREBUS (5D: Greek personification of darkness) —

In Greek mythology, Erebus /ˈɛrɪbəs/, also Erebos (Ancient Greek: Ἔρεβος, Érebos, "deep darkness, shadow" or "covered"), was often conceived as a primordial deity, representing the personification of darkness; for instance, Hesiod's Theogony identifies him as one of the first five beings in existence, born of Chaos. (wikipedia)

• • •

The grid is striking, but I'm not sure it yields the best results. Those loooooong black bars create sections that, yes, house a bunch of longer answers alongside each other, but that also give you *nine* (9) four-letter (or shorter) Across answers in a row (that is, stacked atop one another). That is a lot of short stuff. A lot. A lot a lot. Real feast-or-famine today. You've got your 10-and-overs and your 4-and-unders and not a hell of a lot in between. And the center ... really a dead zone today. Not a lot you can do with an isolated 5x5 section except try to survive without gunking up the grid too badly—mission mostly accomplished, I think: ESTER is def crosswordese, but only ODIST really feels off-putting. Considering how much damn short fill there is, it's not actually that bad. Not nearly as bad as it could've been. And having a ton of short stuff to cut through the banks of longer answers definitely makes getting those answers easy. Short answers are always (generally) easier to get than longer, so all those shorts give solvers lots of opportunities for toeholds. This puzzle should play easier-than-usual for most people, and who doesn't like that? On the plus side, I think the marquee answers (the two 15s) are very much worthy, particularly STEAMBOAT WILLIE (10D: Cartoon reference in the Walt Disney Animation Studios logo). That answer next to PULL RANK ON and IN OVERTIME is very nice. I also thought LOWERCASE I was clever. Usually a random-letter answer like that (say, CAPITALO) feels pretty arbitrary, but the Apple clue here really gives the answer a sense of purpose. A heft. It's such a distinctive feature of the Apple brand names that it feels OK as a standalone answer in a way that LOWERCASE [some other letter] might not.

I had a very bad start and still finished pretty quickly. After getting SHALE instantly (1A: Rock in which fossils can be found), I wanted HEXA- (!?!?) at 2D: Prefix with -gram). I then wanted ROLE instead of PART (6D: Auditioner's hope), and then GOES instead of ISAT (7D: Attends). So I had to ditch that section because it was just a mess. Got really going with ELON NANA ALVA TUNA SPIN, in that order, one after the other, which gave me the fronts of all the long Downs coming out of the NE. Getting into the center from the SE wasn't easy because I had -OWNER (no idea) (42A: Stock character?) and -INTO (no idea) (29D: Admire, as a lover's eyes). Decided to jump right into the center with SORTA, and then when I wanted ELDER at 28D: Venerable sort, I noticed that the "D" from that would've work with SORTA but *would* work with KINDA. Rest of the center was no problem from there. Once I shot CRABCAKES up into the NW, I managed to work out all my problems up there (never heard of a BOSS BATTLE, so I'm really glad the crosses were gettable, though EREBUS was pretty tough).

Finished up in the SW, which the short crosses made very easy. The only answer that really made me wince in this grid was ATRI (truly primo crosswordese) (54A: "The Bell of ___" (Longfellow poem)), so with a bunch of solid-to-good longer answers, that's probably a win, overall. Now if only I could commit ARIE Luyendyk's name to memory. I keep wanting it to have a "Y" in it. Why!? "Y"!!!? ARYA. Is that ... anybody's name? Woof. The one thing about crosswordese (which ARIE's name definitely is) is that it's at least helpful. Knowing it (see ELON, ESTER, ATRI, etc.) gives you a quick leg up (one you feel kinda bad about because you just know this stuff, you don't know how you know it except from doing so many damn crosswords, it's not a measure of your intelligence, you don't feel like you earned it, etc.). But with [Racer Luyendyk] I can't even get his name to stick. Seen it a billion times, always want it to be slightly different. I think the name ARIE really has been completely taken over in my mind by musician India.ARIE and she's not moving. ANYA Seton ... there's another one I have to stop and think about. And AYLA, a character created by Jane AUEL (AUEL is easy for me, but AYLA I screw up regularly). Where was I? Oh, yeah, pretty good puzzle.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Royce Ferguson

Relative difficulty: Easy? I was not speeding and got up in the middle to do something, so I don't know...

THEME: none

Word of the Day: ST. VITUS (9D: One of the Fourteen Holy Helpers in Roman Catholicism) —

Vitus (/ˈvaɪtəs/), according to Christian legend, was a Christian saint from Sicily. He died as a martyr during the persecution of Christians by co-ruling Roman Emperors Diocletianand Maximian in 303. Vitus is counted as one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers of medieval Roman Catholicism. Saint Vitus' Day is celebrated on 15 June. In places where the Julian Calendar is used, this date coincides, in the 20th and 21st centuries, with 28 June on the Gregorian Calendar.
In the late Middle Ages, people in Germany celebrated the feast of Vitus by dancing before his statue. This dancing became popular and the name "Saint Vitus Dance" was given to the neurological disorder Sydenham's chorea. It also led to Vitus being considered the patron saint of dancers and of entertainers in general. (wikipedia)

• • •

This one lost me at "intestinal neighbors" and never got me back. Triple stacks on their own just aren't enough to hold my interest, and none of the long answers had any kind of currency or spark or vitality or novelty or anything. Puzzle felt like it was made in the 20th century and then someone got to it last week and added a few current / updated clues, but still ... no one's going to write home about CLOSED-BOOK TESTS or LEARN ONE'S LESSON. And the fill really suffers in places. Lots of short fill yesterday, but most of it held up; today, it fell apart a little bit more. I have the word "Yuck" written across the top of my grid *five* times. Now with ROD I was only mad at the clue (without "fishing" in front of it, ROD is horrible as an answer to [Bit of lakeside equipment]), and with AGNI I was mad because every time I've seen it in the past it's been a crosswordese Latin plural, so I instinctively recoiled, but ... it's a real-ass god, and not exactly a super-minor figure (like, say ST. VITUS—who?), so maybe I'll have to learn to at least tolerate the Hindu god AGNI. But I do not have to tolerate ILEA (yuck all around) or ENES, and SHE doesn't have a slash in it—see: SHE sells seashells down by the seashore. No slash. It *can* have a slash in it, I guess, though no one does that any more (singular "they" has triumphed). Because of all the yuck short fill and associated clues, and because none of the long answers gave a proper payoff when they came into view, the puzzle felt disappointing, and sadly nothing going on in the middle or bottom of the grid did much to change that.

AGNI clues of the Shortz era

I kept getting stalled on awkward pseudo-things like UNEDGED and TIE-WRAP. Remembered crosswordese COATI but half-forgot crosswordese ALTAI. Guessed right on crosswordese TOILE (TULLE is the tutu material, TUILE is ... a cookie, I think, and TOILE is upholstery). I don't accept that "L.M.M." is a "Broadway monogram"—I know who you're talking about, I saw "Hamilton" (and not on Disney+), but that "monogram" has not gotten beyond hardcore fandom, I don't think. At least today the ANO clue told you that you really do need the tilde. But it's still ANO, so pfft. Ugh to the Greek letter gimmick whereby XXX = CHIS. And ugh to -ARY. "IT'S HERE!" has a certain energy I like, but multiple KEATONS and multiple BONSAIS and too many other things just get me down. I was proud of how many of my first guesses on the short stuff were correct. VAST ILIA (misspelled, but still, close) SHE EEL RIPA ENES TESS INCA PELE and DEE, all correct. Oh, and INEXILE, boom, no crosses, nailed it (7D: Like the Dalai Lama since 1959). Of course all of this speed was offset by my total inability to see SEALED ENVELOPES (I had CLASS- at the beginning of 12D: Things for which you must memorize information and that Really hurt). [Know for the future] doesn't capture LEARN ONE'S LESSON at all. There's nothing that hints at the f***ing up you have to do in order to LEARN ONE'S LESSON. [Know for the future] just sounds like info you store away. No context. No sense of learning *the hard way*. I'm reminded all the time of how much better many of these puzzles would be with a more careful (and current) editorial voice. Oh well.

Mistakes? Hmm. ALL for ONE, ILIA for ILEA (again just awful), OAR for ROD. I think that's it. Not many at all. Many thanks to crossword stalwarts EULER and NAST and RIPA for easing my path through this thing.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

PS hey if you want to do a Beautiful (if very easy) themeless today, you should check out Caitlin Reid's latest New Yorker puzzle, which is lovely

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Trenton Charlson

Relative difficulty: Medium (11:27) (the cocktail I had with dinner probably slowed me some...)

THEME:"MADE-TO-ORDER" — random words in familiar phrases are anagrammed to create wacky phrases ... turns out that in each case, the anagram involves putting the letters in alphabetical order (47D: Kind of order for the circled letters in this puzzle => ABC):

Theme answers:

SQUARE CHIN (22A: Facial feature of a Lego man?) (from "square inch")
HOST IN THE DARK (33A: Emcee during a power outage?) (from "shot in the dark")
ACES DISMISSED (48A: "The elite fighter pilots may skip the rest of the lecture"?) (from "case dismissed!")
ABET AROUND THE BUSH (67A: Drive a getaway care through Australia's outback?) (from "beat around the bush")
BEGIN WATCHING (89A: What you might do after the movie previews are finally over?) (but ... weren't you ... "watching" ... the previews?) (from "binge-watching")
BELOW MACARONI (106A: Where spaghetti and orzo rank in terms of their suitability for making necklaces?) (from "elbow macaroni")
OCEAN DEIST (120A: One who believes exclusively in a sea god?) (from "ocean tides")

Word of the Day: PASTORALE (83D: Piece of music that evokes the countryside) —

n. pl. pas·to·ra·li (-rä′lē) or pas·to·rales
1. An instrumental or vocal composition with a tender melody in a moderately slow rhythm, suggestive of traditional shepherds' music and idyllic rural life.
2. A dramatic performance or opera, popular in the 1500s and 1600s, that was based on a rural theme or subject. (thefreedictionary.com)

• • •

I don't think you understand. The entire time I'm solving, I'm honestly thinking, "Come on, puzzle! Show me something! Wow me! Surprise me! Entertain me! You can do it!" I. Want. To. Like. Puzzles. I acknowledge that Sunday is very hard to do well, because themes are just hard to do well in general, and then on Sunday your theme has to be so good that it doesn't become taxing over the course of a large 21x21 grid. But this is why Sundays pay the most. It's the most-solved day of the week. I get my most traffic (by far) on this day of the week. Like ... yeah, it's hard, but this is the Big Time, so shine, already! Today is a good example of why I find the NYTXW Sunday so exasperating. There's just nothing here. There's a thing that *feels* like a theme. I mean, there is a concept. And that concept extends across the longer Across answers. There is wackiness, of a sort. But there is nothing in the way of genuine cleverness or joy. The "alphabetical order" thing ... honestly, I didn't notice. Not while solving, not after. Someone had to tell me. I never saw the revealer, or it didn't register (look at where it is). I just didn't see a clue / answer anywhere indicating that the anagrams involve arranging the letters in alphabetical order, but more importantly, I truly, genuinely, with all my heart, don't understand why a solver is supposed to care? Solvers are going to anagram, based on information in the clue (familiar phrase where one word is clearly re-ordered). And the anagrams are just words. You can *tell* me they're words that have letters that appear in alphabetical order. But ABET is just ABET. It's not hard. For instance, LOST is a word where all the letters are in alphabetical order. And so what? I don't look at any of the anagrammed words and think "wow, the letters in that word are in alphabetical order." BELOW is just a word; I have never cared, and do not now care, that those letters are in alphabetical order. The puzzle is deeply concerned about a thing that I, as a solver, not only am not concerned about, but never even saw. How is that good? And the resulting phrases aren't even funny, my god, you can make up for So Much if you can just hit the "Funny" mark on occasion. But no. And the fill isn't even good, so there's nothing to make up for the sadness of the theme. If you want to see how a simple concept can be enjoyable, look at last Sunday's puzzle. This ... I don't know what this is. I truly don't understand how this passes muster.

There's not much to comment on here. NW corner was where I started and was probably the hardest for me, as I don't remember Winthrop from "The Music Man" (was that ... Ron Howard??), so LISP, hard (1D: What Winthrop speaks with in "The Music Man"). LASS, with that clue, hard (1A: Miss). I still only barely get the clue for ICON (18A: Where a phone might be tapped). I guess I do tap icons on my phone ... seems like more of a "what" than a "where," but OK. No idea about BOBCAT (53A: New Cub Scout). That's not even ... the right ... species? ... or is that not important? Also, I don't care. Cluing seemed maybe harder than usual, overall, but I am drunker than usual, overall, so it's probably just average (note: I've had exactly one drink so don't Worry, I'm just a lightweight—it's a good thing). Only a couple real mistakes today. Thought Winthrop spoke with a TUBA (LOL) and thought LOTT succeeded Frist even though I sorta knew that was chronologically messed up (23D: Frist's successor as Senate majority leader = REID).

Anyway, as for the theme. it's totally possible that I'm just an idiot and missed the "alphabetical order" thing when every other solver could see exactly what was going on ... but somehow I doubt it. The title doesn't tell us enough. "MADE-TO-ORDER" just has "order" in it, and I took it to mean "we've put the letters in a new order" (i.e. anagrammed them), not "we've put these letters in alphabetical order." I went with anagram, not alphabetizing. Seeing what I missed changes my feelings about the puzzle not one bit; if anything, it makes me more disappointed—I just can't believe no one thought about whether this particular twist would add pleasure to the solving experience. Because clearly no one did. I wish the news were better. I'm sorry. Have a nice day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Alan Arbesfeld

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium, Medium, somewhere in there (2:50)

THEME: "Hi there!" — theme answers all begin with "hi" sound, with that sound (the first syllable) spelled differently each time:

Theme answers:

HIKING GEAR (18A: It may include a backpack, boots and a water bottle)
HAIKU POEM (24A: Japanese verse with 17 syllables)
HIGH END (39A: Expensive, as a product line)
HEIGH-HO (41A: Seven dwarfs' cry as off to work they go)
HEIDI KLUM (52A: Supermodel and longtime "Project Runway" host)
HYBRID CARS (61A: Toyota Prius and Honda Insight)

Word of the Day: Haiku (24A) —

Haiku (俳句,[...] is a type of short form poetry [ed.: hmm, right there in the definition, interesting] originally from Japan. Traditional Japanese haiku consist of three phrases that contain a kireji, or "cutting word", 17 on (a type of Japanese phoneme) in a 5, 7, 5 pattern, and a kigo, or seasonal reference. However, modern haiku vary widely on how closely they follow these traditional elements.

• • •

The Friends of Will / Boys Club power is relentless. Over and over and over we get puzzles that reek of last century, that are minimally competent but that don't bring any cleverness or currency, that just take up space, and in doing so continue to groom solvers to expect that "this is just the way puzzles are." I am all for a good, simple sound-based puzzle. Why not? I've seen same-sound, different-spelling puzzles before (a bunch). Make the answers fun, make your grid sparkly, give us a surprise here or there, and you're good. But this puzzle does none of those things. It crowds the grid with themers, none of which are that interesting, two of which are really too close IMHO to be truly *different* "hi-" spellings (HIKING, HIGH-END ... just a long "I"), and one of which is absolutely, puzzle-murderingly not a thing. I direct your attention to HAIKU POEM. Just ... gaze upon it ... in all its luminous, absurd redundancy. To state the obvious: a haiku is, by definition, in all cases, a "poem." There is no need to specify POEM, as there is no non-poem form of haiku. There is no HAIKUPROSE or HAIKUESSAY or HAIKUOPED or HAIKUDOG. So here you have someone who (wrongly) thought, "I need another 'hi-' answer" and then (much more wrongly) thought "I got it, HAIKU POEM!" You'd almost have to hate words to do this kind of thing. So ... the old-fashioned, very well worn concept that *might yet* be done in a pleasing way is instead driven into the ground and lit on fire. NEATO!

The one site of relative slowness for me today was in the NE and E, starting with JOCK, which feels both too slangy and caricaturey to fit the straightforward clue (10A: Varsity letter earner, say). You can letter in bowling, you know that, right? But sure, JOCK. Not getting that one straight off meant I couldn't just fire off the Down crosses. And even when I worked that corner out, I couldn't see OVERNIGHT for some reason (11D: Like some FedEx or DHL service). Clue is reasonable enough there. I just ... I had the OVER- but a couple of the NIGHT crosses were also proving problematic. First, MSN (27A: AOL alternative), which ... is that still a thing? Is AOL? Again, please see my first paragraph, where I talk about this puzzle's belonging to the last century. Speaking (again) of last century: "Snow White!" I had trouble with the spelling of "HEIGH-HO"—tried to write in HIHOHIHO, but ... thwarted by an insufficiency of boxes. But I worked it all out and came in with a pretty average Monday time. Only other place I even hesitated was at MOOSE (55D: Glacier National Park sighting) because of vagueness and "OH, GEE!" (67A: "Well, golly!") because of not knowing what the hell Wally or the Beav or whatever were going to say before "GEE" (I thought maybe "AW"?). Feel the freshness! I gotta go. Take care.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Hello, everyone! It's Clare here for the last Tuesday of July. Hope everyone is safe and staying inside as much as possible! I've been sitting around watching some sports again, but with Liverpool winning the Premier League title (!!) I'm pretty sated for now. In other news, I just found out that my law school classes will be entirely online for the fall, which is kind of a bummer — maybe I'll just move to Montana and take my classes from there. With that, on to the puzzle for today!

Constructor:Ross Trudeau

Relative difficulty:Medium

THEME: WEB OF LIES(36D: It's spun by mendacious people ... or a hint to the shaded answers) — The theme answers are all synonyms for a lie

Theme answers:

TALL TALES (4D: Accounts of Paul Bunyan, say)
FABLE (17A: "The Tortoise and the Hare," e.g.)
FALSEHOOD (29A: "__ of the tongue leads to that of the heart": Jefferson)
FICTION (8D: Section of a bookstore)
WHOPPER (24D: Burger King offering)
UNTRUTH (41D: Fabrication)
INVENTION (44A: Bubble gum in the 1906, e.g.)
LIBEL (60A: Writing that can get you in trouble)

Word of the Day: ENCINO MAN(15A: 1992 Brendan Fraser film about a thawed Cro-Magnon)—

Encino Man (known as California Man in France, Great Britain, Asia and New Zealand) is a 1992 American comedy film directed by Les Mayfield in his directorial debut, and starring Brendan Fraser, Sean Astin and Pauly Shore. The plot revolves around two geeky teenagers from Encino, Los Angeles, California, played by Astin and Shore, who discover a caveman in Morgan's backyard frozen in a block of ice. The caveman, played by Fraser, has to learn to live in the 20th century. Along the way, he teaches them about life. (Wiki)

• • •

Wow. So. Many. Theme. Answers! I can't decide whether I'm more impressed that the constructor managed to fit all those theme answers in the puzzle and have it be coherent, or if I'm more annoyed that I had to type all of those clues and theme answers out in today's write-up.

This whole puzzle was centered on the theme, and the way WEB OF LIES tied everything together was quite impressive. The problem with having the whole puzzle revolve around the theme, though, was that the rest of the puzzle suffered. I didn't have any moments going through the puzzle where I thought, "Oh, that was cool"— I just worked my way around until I finished and realized what the theme was. For me, the theme was an afterthought.

A nit about the theme answers is that all of them are singular except for TALL TALES, which is plural. The bigger problem is that the constructor clearly made some sacrifices to make WEB OF LIES work. There were quite a few ugly three-letter fill words (See: INS; OWS; DPS; UMP; ODS; EMU...), and I didn't think anything really popped in the puzzle. (Seriously, I had to search over and over to find something that could work as a "word of the day"— and I ended up choosing a 28-year-old movie that has a whopping 15 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.) Also, there were so many words that start with IN or INS in this puzzle. The worst of it was INS (12D), INSPOT (25A), and INDEBT (46A); on top of that, we have INVENTION (44A) and INST (20D), which also felt pretty cheap.

There were also a lot of vague clues that could have led to many different answers, which is definitely fair game in puzzles late in the week but which I find annoying on Mondays and Tuesdays. For example: 36A: Let me see could have been so many things other than WELL; 45D: "Thanks, I __ that" could also have been a variety of things other than NEEDED; and the puzzle started with 1D: [Fizzle], which was quite vague. I hate the fill of IBARS (44D: Some building beams), which could be so many things — depending on what one letter the constructor needs at the start.

Some other nits: SEACOAST (is this a thing?); EWELAMB (again, is this really a thing?); DPS (not a common abbreviation at all, according to my sportswriter sister); ARYAN (having this in a puzzle feels ALL sorts of weird to me).

Misc.:

Uhh 28D: Things most interstates don't have— Interstates may not have many TOLLS, but lemme tell you about turnpikes... endless TOLLS! My sister and I just got to D.C. after a 10-day (socially distant, mask-wearing, sanitizer-toting) road trip across the country stopping at a bunch of national parks along the way, and the amount of money we had to pay in TOLLS was just ridiculous.
I love me some LOKI (9A: Norse trickster) — Tom Hiddleston's portrayal of LOKI in the "Avengers" movies is iconic.
One word I did like seeing in the puzzle was PREVENTABLE (26D) — it just felt interesting and different from everything else.
I put in OVERRULED (56A) and then LIBEL (60A) very quickly, so, thanks, law school?
Raise your hand if you've ever responded to something with LOL (30D) while you were, in fact, not laughing — or even smiling! (Guilty!)
We got the baseball double whammy with DPS (38A) and then UMP (41A) reminding us that baseball is, indeed, back — for now (but who knows how long that'll last?)

Have a great rest of your week!

Signed, Clare Carroll, a proud Liverpool fan — and that's no TALL TALE

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Amanda Chung and Karl Ni

Relative difficulty: Challenging (5 minutes-ish)

THEME: STRONG PASSWORD (49A: It may require letters, a number and a special character—as seen in 20-, 33- and 39-Across) — well, you don't actually "see" the numbers and letters as such, but you do see the words that represent them:

Theme answers:

TWO PERCENT MILK (2% milk) (20A: Reduced-fat option)
IPHONE SEVEN PLUS (iPhone 7+) (33A: Mobile device that debuted in 2016)
ONE MICHELIN STAR (1 Michelin *) (?!) (39A: Highly sought-after restaurant rating)

Word of the Day:"TED" (6A: Wisecracking bear of film) —

Ted is a 2012 American comedy film directed by Seth MacFarlane and written by MacFarlane, Alec Sulkin, and Wellesley Wild. The film stars Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis, with Joel McHale and Giovanni Ribisi in supporting roles, with MacFarlane providing the voice and motion capture of the title character. The film tells the story of John Bennett, a Boston native whose childhood wish brings his teddy bear friend Ted to life. However, in adulthood, Ted prevents John and his love interest Lori Collins from moving on with their lives. // The film is MacFarlane's feature-length directorial debut, produced by Media Rights Capital and distributed by Universal Pictures. It was the 12th highest-grossing film of 2012 and received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song. Ted received mixed to positive reviews with critics praising the humor and premise while criticizing the plot and inconsistent script.(wikipedia)

• • •

This had a lot of things working against it. I have to admire the ambition here—it's a weird concept, and it can't have been easy to find themers that worked. I just did not like how it came out. TWO PERCENT MILK is fine, that's very much a thing, but IPHONE SEVEN PLUS is several flavors of yuck. First, like the puzzle doesn't shill Apple products enough—the weirdly specific product name just reeks of niche tech crud. How long ago was the IPHONE SEVEN PLUS anyway? Are we honestly expected to remember the different releases of iPhone and their variants going back ... I mean, this must be at least four generations now. I've had my iPhone 8 for 3 or 4 years now. Anyway, that really killed it for me, and then ONE MICHELIN STAR felt like very contrived phrasing. What's "highly sought-after" is *a* Michelin Star. Since there are ... more stars to be had, it seems so odd to say the "highly sought-after restaurant rating" is ONE as opposed to two or three MICHELIN STARs. Surely those ratings are even more highly sought-after. Something about ONE MICHELIN STAR just doesn't feel right as a stand-alone answer. I think it's that the other two themers, when you write them out the way you would normally, the way they appear in the wild, they actually contain a number and a symbol (see "Theme Answers," above), whereas you would never write out "1 Michelin *." Just bizarre. Also, the revealer, isn't exactly strong. When I am asked to choose passwords nowadays I am given strongness ratings that go well beyond merely "strong." This one just clunked in too many places. Plus there's some regrettable fill (e.g. IBANKER CONG OWOW), *and* the cluing felt harder than normal. Just hard to see the joy here.

I don't think I've had a worse start to a solve ... ever. At least not with a relatively easy puzzle. I had four wrong answers (at various points) *in the NW corner alone*. LEGOS not ATOMS (1A: Small building blocks). SIM not ATM (1D: ___ card). BEEP not TOOT (2D: Friendly honk). OUCH not OWOW (3D: "I'm in pain! I'm in pain!") (!?). No idea about sci. name of MOOSE (17A: Animal known scientifically as Alces alces). Don't think of MISO as a "seasoning"94D: Traditional Japanese seasoning) That whole corner was just brutal for a Wednesday. And the NE corner wasn't much better. Had both DEALS and SALES before PACTS (which are far less handshake-specific, imho) (9A: Things finished with handshakes). Then had STICK ON before PASTE ON (awk) (9D: Affix with adhesive). Needed many crosses to get stuff like POTPIE (25A: Entree baked in a tin) and MOTELS (46A: Things often found near cloverleafs), which had really vague clues. Never got a rhythm (or, if I got one, it quickly ceased). Bottom half was definitely easier. but the general grind of solving was never alleviated by thematic pleasures or sparkly fill. It just missed me, this puzzle, at every level. I'm surprised, as I usually like work by this pair—as I'm sure I will again.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Joel Fagliano

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

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

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

merriam-webster.com

• • •

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

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

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

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

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Claire Rimkus and Erik Agard

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (Medium, but I had an eternal-seeming free fall in the SE corner, so that threw my time off badly)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: MICROBLADING (9D: Eyebrow-filling technique) —

Microblading is a tattooing technique in which a small handheld tool made of several tiny needles is used to add semi-permanent pigment to the skin. Microblading differs from standard eyebrow tattooing because each hairstroke is created by hand using a blade which creates fine slices in the skin, whereas eyebrow tattoos are done with a machine and single needle bundle. Microblading is typically used on eyebrows to create, enhance or reshape their appearance in terms of both shape and color. It deposits pigment into the upper region of the dermis, so it fades more rapidly than traditional tattooing techniques, which deposit pigment deeper. Microblading artists are not necessarily tattoo artists, and vice versa, because the techniques require different training. // Microblading is also sometimes called embroidery, feather touch or hair-like strokes. (wikipedia)

• • •

This grid has many strengths, and I enjoyed solving it right up to the very end, when I hit a clue that made no sense to me and got completely stuck. Freefall stuck. Three blank squares left and ... no hope. Or so it seemed. The main problem is a clue that, in retrospect, seems actually very truly bad, on multiple levels. That clue is the clue for STUBS (48D: Movie reviewers often trash them). I worked that answer down to STU-S and ... nothing. No idea. I figured I had an answer wrong, since STUDS couldn't be right, and nothing came to mind that seemed remotely right. And the cross was 57A: Life partner, for which I had -IM-, and for which the only answer that occurred to me was TIME. Isn't TIME/Life a company of some kind? I seem to remember TV ads featuring TIME/Life operators, standing by ... to do ... something. Hang on, let me look that up... oh yeah, man, that company had a real racket going with their eternal series of books for whatever you're in to. Photography. Cooking. This baloney:

Point is, I am old and TIME seemed a very reasonable answer for [Life partner]. Then there was 52D: "___ pass" (IT'LL). I had the IT- ... but never considered IT'LL. Instead, the only thing I could think of was "IT'S A pass" (kinda like "It's a no" ... like, a way to phrase a rejection, as in "no thanks"). That left one answer that could—and eventually did—rescue me: 60A: Brand with "Classic" and Wavy" varieties (LAY'S). Really, really should've gotten this earlier, but I got so distracted by the stuff I couldn't make sense of, I didn't think this one through enough. The "wavy" part, combined with having -AY- in place, eventually got me LAY'S which got me ITLL which got me LIMB which brings me back to ... STUBS. What the hell does that clue think it's doing? Well, no, I know what it *thinks* it's doing. The STUBS are supposed to be *ticket* STUBS (I think), and you throw them away (or "trash them" after seeing a movie? OK, well, uh, two things. First, movie *reviewers* see screenings before the general public, right? I mean, now they probably just watch screeners, but the point is I don't know what the STUBS situation is like for movie "reviewers" because they just don't see the movies with the rest of us schlubs. I assume the tix are comped and STUBS aren't involved. Point is, I would never associate the general-public ticket *stub* with a movie *reviewer*. That's just nonsense. Further nonsense—even I, an old, don't even deal with STUBS any more. The last few movies I've seen in the theater, my ticket was on my phone. The ticket-taker scans it, bada-bing, I'm in. No STUBS to "trash." So this clue is somehow both factually wrong and dated. And that is what I'm left thinking, at the end of an otherwise nice grid. I'm left with that feeling of "why did you write such a bad clue?" (I have no idea who's responsible here; could be constructors, but editor rewrites lots of clues, as a rule). The clue is just a badly misguided attempt at wordplay, and it really detracted from the enjoyment I was having up until that point.

[Cinema ephemera of yore]

Wasn't sure about ELASTIGIRL because I don't remember "The Incredibles" (15A: Superhero in "The Incredibles"). I think I had both ELASTICMAN and ELASTICGAL in there before crosses led me to the right answer. Don't really like the clue on HALF at all (31D: Like 50 U.S. senators). Yes, 50 is HALF of the *number* of U.S. senators, but the clue is phrased like the adjective is going to describe them (like, in a fair and representative world, the answer could be MALE, say). Clue is awkward as is. Deliberately misleading, but not in a clever way. I also found the clue on LUSTS (24D: Groin pulls?) really truly CRINGEWORTHY. I get that it's about the fact that lust involves a "pull" (or attraction) on your "groin" (or genital ... area) but the image it conjures up, and that "pull" conjures up specifically, is that of a dude masturbating and ... yeah, in my crossword? It's a pass!

While I didn't love cringing, I did love CRINGEWORTHY as an answer, just as I loved "AMEN TO THAT!", MICROBLADING, and HIS AND HIS (saw right through that attempt to trip me with heterosexism, though HER did briefly occur to me as a possible last three letters) (31A: Like some monogrammed towels). Lots of women in this grid (DINAH SHORE! Now there's an old-school answer I can get behind) and in general the puzzle felt gender-balanced, not gender-biased the way it often can in the (somehow still) male-dominated world of NYTXW constructors. So if I just look at the grid, I think this puzzle is really nice. I just found a few of the clues really off, or off-putting, and that kinda soured my experience.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Adam Aaronson and Paolo Pasco

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: hard-to-spell proper nouns — not really a "theme," but ... a design element, for sure (see 1A, 68A)

Word of the Day: KYRGYZSTAN (68A: Landlocked land along the Silk Road) —

Kyrgyzstan (/ˈkɪərɡiːˌstɑːnˌ -ˌstæn/ Kyrgyz: Кыргызстан Qırğızstan [qɯrʁɯsˈstɑn]), officially the Kyrgyz Republic (Кыргыз Республикасы; Russian: Кыргызская Республика, tr.Kyrgyzskaya Respublika) and also known as Kirghizia (Киргизия [kʲɪrˈɡʲizʲɪjə]), is a country in Central Asia. Kyrgyzstan is a landlocked country with mountainous terrain. It is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west and southwest, Tajikistan to the southwest and China to the east. Its capital and largest city is Bishkek.
Kyrgyzstan's recorded history spans over 2,000 years, encompassing a variety of cultures and empires. Although geographically isolated by its highly mountainous terrain, which has helped preserve its ancient culture, Kyrgyzstan has been at the crossroads of several great civilizations as part of the Silk Road and other commercial and cultural routes. Though long inhabited by a succession of independent tribes and clans, Kyrgyzstan has periodically fallen under foreign domination and attained sovereignty as a nation-state only after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. (wikipedia)

• • •

This puzzle was not all-over hard but it was cluster-hard, for sure. There's a knot of answers right around and including FEED, and virtually all of my problems were there and radiating out from there. Everything circled in green in this shot, basically:

That little gimmick with the "K" proper nouns in the first and last Across answers, yes, that slowed me down, but not because I didn't know the answers, only because I wasn't sure how to spell them (which was surely the point ... though I don't know why that is "fun," truly; I mean, I see what you're doing, but ... yeah, that sort of "cute" just isn't my thing). Everything pictured in the green knot above, however, did legit slow me down. I am very mad at myself about "I RESIGN," which I honestly should've seen much more quickly (27A: Words from a quitter). I had the -ESI- but all I could think of was "I DESIST," and I was like "wow, that's terrible." Yes. Terrible and wrong. I was also mad that I just couldn't come up with the ROLL of EEL ROLL (47A: Sushi with unagi). I know very well that unagi is eel and I got the EEL part no problem, but ... I just kept picturing the eel sitting on sushi rice and thinking "what ... do you call that? EEL RICE?" When I think "sushi" I think raw fish (or, if eel, cooked fish) on rice. The whole ROLL possibility ... I just blanked on. Found the cue on FEED hard and the clues on DUEL (35D: Go one on one) and AGES (25D: So long) vague and thought 'SCUSE ME was a single word ending in "-EME" (39A: "Comin' through!"), and then there was NECROMANCY, which had a very hard "?" clue (29D: Dead reckoning?), but one I could normally battle through pretty easily if the adjacent answers were normally cooperative. Alas, they were not. The rest of the puzzle—a snap (again, except the spelling bee at the first and last Acrosses).

It's a nice grid overall, for sure. The two *long* Acrosses are the real stand-outs, but won't get the attention they deserve because of the look-at-me-ness of the K-words. Big PLAY WITHIN A PLAY fan ("The Murder of Gonzago" is in "Hamlet"). Nothing else really Sizzle-sizzles, but the big chunks are all smooth and none of the short crosses are horrid, and "I'M HONORED" at least feels original / creative, so, yeah, looks good, more of this would be fine, thank you.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: David Levinson Wilk

Relative difficulty: Average

THEME: "Puzzlin'" — familiar phrases with -ING words in them are reclued as if the "G" were the first letter in the next word in the phrase and the -ING word were changed to a slangy "-IN'" ending:

Theme answers:

STANDIN' GROOM ONLY (23A: Nobody but the guy gettin' married on his feet?)
EVERLASTIN' GLOVE (38A: Winter item you'll be wearin' for years?)
FALLIN' GRAIN (58A: Danger when walkin' in a silo?)
PARKIN' GRAMP (69A: Drivin' around the lot with pop-pop?)
QUALIFYIN' ROUND (87A: Sayin'"Look, here's the thing about dry land ..."?)
FEAR OF MISSIN' GOUT (102A: What was causin' the doctor to check for joint pain?)

Word of the Day: ANN MEYERS (56D: Basketball Hall-of-Famer who was the first woman to sign an N.B.A. contract) —

Ann Meyers Drysdale (born Ann Elizabeth Meyers; March 26, 1955) is an American former basketball player and sportscaster. She was a standout player in high school, college, the Olympic Games, international tournaments, and the professional levels.
Meyers was the first player to be part of the U.S. national team while still in high school. She was the first woman to be signed to a four-year athletic scholarship for college, at UCLA.^[1] She was also the second woman to sign a contract with a National Basketball Association team, the Indiana Pacers (1979). Her USA World Champion team member Lusia "Lucy" Harris-Stewart was the first woman to sign with an NBA team in 1977, the New Orleans Jazz. (wikipedia)

• • •

I don't even know what to say. I don't understand who this puzzle is for. It feels like it's for 1996 or maybe 1985. The theme ... the "jokes" all seems so forced and corny. I mean, the clue on QUALIFYIN' GROUND, for instance, doesn't even make any real sense. "Dry land"? That is your GROUND? And you are imagining someone ... adding some kind of information about "dry land" ... as a form of qualification? It's just so head-shakingly sad, all of this. I'm all for simple and cute, but if this is simple (and I guess it is), the results were repeatedly groany, and not in a "good one!" kind of way. Also the puzzle is really hurt by its low word count. It wants to look impressive by having these big banks of long answers, but they are really costly. NERD ALERT and maybe PHONE SEX are the only answers that seem really nice. Meanwhile, in the "costly" department, we have primo junk like IIN (!?!?) and GOI and ENTO and ASET and AFOE (!?!?!?) and these names, my god, so many names that are clearly only here because they have so many favorable (i.e. RLSTNE) letters in them: ERVINE CABELLO ANNMEYERS NEY MEADE (really, *two* crosswordese military leaders?). GRAMP is not a thing (it's GRAMPS or GRAMPA). OUCHIES is 6000% not a thing. ENNUIS absolutely cannot be pluralized in any reasonable context, my goodness, come on (78D: Ho-hum feelings). Deep mothball smell coming off of this one. I don't know why making a delightful, joyful, or even just light and airy Sunday puzzle is so, so hard. NESPRESSO!? Nespress-no. AALARGE (?), USEALOT (!?!?!). It was a groan-out-loud solve, for sure. ENDE (ugh) of story.

I finished with an error that I absolutely could not find. This is because I had LIE IN instead of LIE ON (40D: Treat as a bed), because I lie in bed, not on bed, and also because ERIS is a goddess so I didn't really think twice about that answer. Now, if I'd read the clue closely ... it would've been a good idea to think twice about it, since the clue was actually asking for a *god* (52A: God who becomes a goddess when an "r" is removed) (EROS). I never bother with those "remove this letter and carry the eight to get another thing!"-type clues. It's a crossword, not a child's rebus puzzle in Highlights magazine. Just clue the answer. Sigh. Anyway, that's all clearly my fault, but since LIE IN is a very plausible answer, and ERIS is in the god/goddess family, you can see (I hope) how finding that particular mistake was well-nigh impossible. Do people call cop cars / squad cars / police cars "RADIO CARS" anymore??? (46A: Receiver of an all-points bulletin). Again, I wonder about what year this puzzle was made in / intended for. The name-y-ness of the puzzle was a little extreme. Count them. There are a lot, and especially a lot up top. TEIXEIRA JEN ERVINE CABELLO SNERT MEADE SHARPTON NEY are all very densely packed in that N/NE section. See also CARR JAYNE CAAN ANNMEYERS NESPRESSO, wow. Names always feel good when you know them and terrible when you don't. Name-dense puzzles are thus dangerous. Not sure EVITE and EBOOK belong in the same grid if you can avoid it. You can leave me the SQUISHY ZEBRAFISH and honestly take most of the rest of this and dispose of it. I just don't understand how this concept qualifies as acceptable fare for the "best puzzle in the country."

So Lollapuzzoola, one of the two crossword tournaments I think are worth going to, would normally be happening in NYC this month, but ... well, you know. Look around at the hellscape that your putrid national leadership hath wrought. Good news, though—the tournament is still happening, entirely on-line, in just under 2 weeks (Saturday, Aug. 15)! Here's organizer Brian Cimmet to tell you all about it:

It’s almost time for the greatest crossword tournament ever held on a Saturday in August – Lollapuzzoola 13 is taking place virtually on Saturday, August 15!There will be five tournament puzzles, extra (optional) games peppered throughout the event, and two skill divisions in which to vie for championship bragging rights.Visit bemoresmarter.com/lollapuzzoola for more information and to sign up today!

I expect they're going to break "attendance" records since everyone has equal access to the tourney, wherever they live, and people are understandably desperate for human community of a fun-loving nature. Anyway, you should do this. The in-person version of the tourney is always delightful, and I can't imagine the on-line version would be anything less.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Eric Bornstein

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: JUST A PHASE — Theme answers begin with phases of matter.

Theme answers:

GAS STATION (17A: Where to go for a fill-up)
SOLID GROUND (22A: Firm place to plant your feet)
PLASMA SCREEN TV (36A: Viewing options popularized in the 90s)
LIQUID ASSET (45A: Cash or stock, e.g.)
JUST A PHASE (57A: The terrible twos, e.g. (one hopes!) ... or the start of 17-, 22-, 36- or 45-Across?)

Word of the Day: OLMEC (30A: Ancient carver of stone heads in Mesoamerica) —

The Olmecs (/ˈɒlmɛks, ˈoʊl-/) were the earliest known major Mesoamerican civilization. Following a progressive development in Soconusco, they occupied the tropical lowlands of the modern-day Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco. It has been speculated that the Olmecs derived in part from the neighboring Mokaya or Mixe–Zoque cultures.
The Olmecs flourished during Mesoamerica's formative period, dating roughly from as early as 1500 BCE to about 400 BCE. Pre-Olmec cultures had flourished since about 2500 BCE, but by 1600–1500 BCE, early Olmec culture had emerged, centered on the San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán site near the coast in southeast Veracruz.^[1] They were the first Mesoamerican civilization, and laid many of the foundations for the civilizations that followed.^[2] Among other "firsts", the Olmec appeared to practice ritual bloodletting and played the Mesoamerican ballgame, hallmarks of nearly all subsequent Mesoamerican societies. The aspect of the Olmecs most familiar now is their artwork, particularly the aptly named "colossal heads".^[3] The Olmec civilization was first defined through artifacts which collectors purchased on the pre-Columbian art market in the late 19th century and early 20th century. Olmec artworks are considered among ancient America's most striking.^[4]
(Wikipedia)

• • •

Hi, it's an Annabel Monday! How's everybody holding up? I'm doing pretty okay. I finished my first novel!!! It's a romance novel because I'm cheesy. I also watched like two seasons of Grey's Anatomy, learned how to embroider, baked a bunch, listened to the new Taylor Swift album, made a TikTok account...I'm doing all the quarantine stuff.

AS TO, ON IT, ISN'T, IS IT...this isn't the most interesting fill I've ever seen. I know it's Monday, but we can do a little better, right? At least we avoided my nemesis, ADO. The word of the day, OLMEC, gave me the most trouble because OSU is a rough cross. I used to have a Buckeyes t-shirt which is the only thing that saved me.

The theme was fun, though! Simple and reminiscent of elementary school science class. Perfect for a Monday, if you ask me. I'm glad they included PLASMA, although I don't understand much about how it works. The sun is made of plasma, no? Listen, there's a reason I'm a future librarian and not a future physicist.

Bullets:

MRS (32D: "The Marvelous ___ Maisel") — Or, the degree Wellesley women were much expected to get. Not so much anymore, thank goodness. An aunt once asked me how I was finding men at Wellesley, and I responded--quite diplomatically, I think--"I'm not finding many."
NAAN (53D: Indian flatbread)— Not one of the things I've made during quarantine, surprisingly. I have made challah, though. What has everyone else been up to baking-wise?
GLEE (23D: Kind of club for singers) — Alright, show of hands, it's confession time. Who here watched "Glee" religiously while it was airing? I feel like I knew even at the time that it was a total mess of a show, but I watched it anyway, GLEEfully. It's hard to pick a favorite moment, but the time the principal called Kesha "Kay-dollar sign-hah" is a close one. Or the recurring joke that students at the school were bullied by having slushies thrown at them. Lots to unpack.
STUDS (40A: Beefcakes)— "Tell me about it, stud."

Signed, Annabel Thompson

P.S. Rex here, LCD = "lowest common denominator" (31D: 12, for 1/3, 1/4 and 1/6: Abbr.); getting lots of Qs because ... it's not good fill at all, esp for a Monday (this was a Tuesday puzzle, a perfectly fine Tuesday puzzle). OK bye.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Jacob Stulberg

Relative difficulty: Medium (actually Easy-Medium, but a couple of those themers seem like they might give people trouble)

THEME: FORSAKE (37A: Abandon ... or two words often seen next to the starts of 17-, 27-, 47- and 60-Across) — first words of themers can all fit into the blank space in "FOR ___ SAKE!"

Theme answers:

"PETE'S DRAGON" (17A: 2016 live-action Disney film with an animated title character)
CHRIST'S COLLEGE (27A: Where John Milton and John Oliver studied at Cambridge)
"GOD'S LITTLE ACRE" (47A: 1933 Erskine Caldwell novel about a wealth-obsessed farm family)
"HEAVEN'S GATE" (60A: Notorious cinematic flop of 1980)

Word of the Day: ALEK Wek (26D: Supermodel Wek) —

Alek Wek (born 16 April 1977) is a South Sudanese-British model and designer who began her fashion career at the age of 18 in 1995. She has been hailed for her influence on the perception of beauty in the fashion industry. She is from the Dinka ethnic group in South Sudan but fled to Britain in 1991 to escape the civil war in Sudan. In 2015, she was listed as one of BBC's 100 Women. (wikipedia)

• • •

This played like an easy themeless, in that it had some cool longer answers and I, uh, saw no theme at all. I blew right through FORSAKE ... I could see that its clue was trying to tell me something about the theme, but it didn't seem worth slowing down to sort it all out. The themer clues were clearly just going to be straightforward, so whatever the trick or gimmick was, it wasn't necessary to my finishing the puzzle. So I read [Abandon], got FORSAKE, moved along. After I was done, I came back and figured out what was going on and, sure, that seems like a fine idea for a theme. Quirky, slightly profane ... I like it. The non-theme fill isn't particularly showy, but it's largely clean, and the themers are really original and interesting. I had no idea "PETE'S DRAGON" was remade in 2016. The version I know came out in the late '70s. I guess with advances in animation, it seemed ripe for remaking, but looking at the obviously impressive and undoubtedly expensive dragon from the 2016 version ... I dunno. I have a soft spot for the 2D animation and general late '70s wackiness of the original. I mean, come on: "Helen Reddy, in her first movie musical!" And she's dressed as the Gorton's Fisherman. What's not to love?

As for "GOD'S LITTLE ACRE," talk about Up My Alley. I am almost finished cataloguing my entire vintage paperback collection (my big summer project). This meant organizing the books in physical space, according to publisher, and building a master database. Erskine Caldwell was a major author in mid-century paperback publishing—smutty (or, uh, "earthy," I guess you'd call it) but vaguely literary enough that highbrows wouldn't be too embarrassed to buy it. Anyway, it hit some kind of sweet spot because his books went through printing after printing after printing in the '40s and '50s. I must have a dozen or more Caldwells in my collection, and probably at least three different versions of "GOD'S LITTLE ACRE" alone. It strikes me, though, that Caldwell's fame fell off fast and hard after the '50s, as tastes changed and more sexually explicit fare became more mainstream. His once-controversial stuff probably quickly came to seem tame and quaint. Anyway, if you're under 60, it seems at least a little likely that you've never even heard of "GOD'S LITTLE ACRE." I can't remember the last time I saw it mentioned ... anywhere ... ever. But in my little niche world of paperback collecting—legendary.

I was very slow to start this, with first three Acrosses being "dunno""got it!" and "wrong!" (BLT instead of PBJ) (11A: Popular sandwich, for short). First three clues I looked at in NW drew blanks. No idea on JOIST or JAPE or OPEN at first glances. Really left me spinning around—of course there are a bunch of gimmes up there, too, but somehow I saw them late and generally felt like I had to Work to get that corner. But once I did that, and then eventually fixed my BLT error, things evened out, and once I hit the middle of the grid, I really took off. Fast-Monday speed for the latter half of the solve ("GOD'S LITTLE ACRE" and "HEAVEN'S GATE" both being very very well known titles to me). Someday I will remember ALEK Wek. She is crosswordese that I keep letting slide out of my head. Weird to me that she's totally acceptable as a four-letter answer and yet WEK has never ever been in the NYTXW (11 ALEKs, 9 of them Wek ... and yet no WEK in the grid, ever ... curious!).

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Michael Paleos

Relative difficulty: Medium (Easy except for the west, which, yeesh)

THEME: EVERYTHING BAGEL (39A: Breakfast order suggested by the answers to the starred clues) — answers to starred clues either begin or end with an ingredient in the seasoning for said bagel:

Theme answers:

POPPY FIELD (17A: *Wicked Witch's trap for Dorothy in "The Wizard of Oz")
OPEN SESAME (10D: *Storybook password)
VERUCA SALT (29D: *Bratty girl in "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory")
ONION DOMES (60A: *Colorful architectural features of Moscow's St. Basil Cathedral)

Word of the Day: GANYMEDE (42A: Largest moon in the solar system) —

Ganymede /ˈɡænɪmiːd/, a satellite of Jupiter (Jupiter III), is the largest and most massive of the Solar System's moons. The ninth-largest object in the Solar System, it is the largest without a substantial atmosphere. It has a diameter of 5,268 km (3,273 mi), making it 26% larger than the planet Mercury by volume, although it is only 45% as massive. Possessing a metallic core, it has the lowest moment of inertia factor of any solid body in the Solar System and is the only moon known to have a magnetic field. Outward from Jupiter, it is the seventh satellite and the third of the Galilean moons, the first group of objects discovered orbiting another planet. Ganymede orbits Jupiter in roughly seven days and is in a 1:2:4 orbital resonance with the moons Europa and Io, respectively. [...] In Greek mythology, Ganymede /ˈɡænɪmiːd/ or Ganymedes /ɡænɪˈmiːdiːz/ (Ancient Greek: Γανυμήδης Ganymēdēs) is a divine hero whose homeland was Troy. Homer describes Ganymede as the most beautiful of mortals, and in one version of the myth, Zeus falls in love with his beauty and abducts him in the form of an eagle to serve as cup-bearer in Olympus. (wikipedia)

• • •

Getting kind of tired of seeing men's names in the by-lines. Been almost two weeks since we've seen a solo woman constructor. Still can't believe that the inequity is this bad, this late in the game. Oh, hey, in totally unrelated news, did you see the Time article about the editor of the USA Today crossword, a certain Mr. (checks notes) Erik Agard? It's worth reading (and the USA Today crossword is now very much worth doing). But on to this puzzle, which ... Shrug, I guess, is my main feeling. Those are definitely things that can be on an EVERYTHING BAGEL, though the seasoning mixture is in no way standardized or uniform, and seems very frequently to include garlic, so ... I dunno. I think you are supposed to be impressed that two of the themers actually cross the revealer. That's one of those "feats of construction" that just don't matter that much to me. Cool if you can pull it off, but if the core concept isn't great, then I just don't care how many themers you cram in there or whether they cross or not. So this theme is fine—some of the theme answers are nice in their own right—but not particularly innovative or clever.

Fill is decent if uninspired, until you get to the west, where it is inspired ... but not by any force of good. It's always a bad sign when my printed-out / marked-up puzzle has all the green ink in one section of the grid (green pen is what I use to highlight trouble spots). EKE BY is awful in its quaintness and MY GOSH is equally quaint but much more frustratingly vague (lots of stuff could've gone after the initial "MY"; I first had "MY OH MY") (36D: "Goodness me!"). "LIKE MIKE" is a minor movie from 18 years ago, and since it stars the former Lil' Bow Wow (now just Bow Wow, I think), I wanna say ... woof! And yet when I looked the movie up just now the cast list was kind of amazing—Fred Armisen, Crispin Glover, Jimmy Kimmel, Eugene Levy (!), Vanessa Williams, Robert Forster (!!), and, best of all, the legendary Anne Meara (!!!). I didn't like seeing the title while solving, but now I'm starting to come around on it. One answer I will never come around on, however, is PREV (26A: <<< button: Abbr.). Let's start with the fact that PREV under any circumstances, with any clue, is a horrible abbr. Now throw in the fact that three (3) (???) left-facing arrows is not a thing. When I googled "prev button" and did an image search, there were lots of single arrows, some double arrows, and precisely no triple arrows. Also, I've never seen a PREV button in my life. Unless you count this — |< —that is, vertical line followed by left arrow, which I think of as "go back to the PREVious track or PREVious chapter in your Blu-Ray or DVD." Constructors used to just cop to the fact that they were using a bad abbr. for "Before," but the last two clues have tried to work this remote button angle, and it's terrible. A garbage answer in an already half-garbagey section of the grid. Again, I say, woof.

Bullets:

6D: Portuguese king (REI)— botched this one (REY)
12D: Leader of Kappa Lambda Mu? (IOTA)— "Leader" here = letter of Greek alphabet that precedes the sequence in the clue (that is, Kappa Lambda Mu is not, not my knowledge, a sorority)
43A: Tickle Me Elmo toymaker (TYCO) — me: "it's TYCO ... wait, that's the astronomer ... no, wait, that TYCHO Brahe ..."; also me: "They still make ... this toy??"
19A: This, in Spanish (ESTO) — absolutely my least favorite commonly accepted crossword answers are the one where the language being clued has gender but since ours doesn't, there's no way to tell which letter to put in the final slot. OTR-? EST-? Blargh. Not Spanish's fault. Just one of those ambiguous moments that always makes me sigh and makes my shoulders collapse a little in sadness while I'm solving. See also AM-M, which today I guessed very much wrong (4D: Switch on a clock radio). Nobody likes your little "radio" misdirection!!!!
62A: Pop sensation (IDOL) — hey, there's this great site dedicated to vintage paperback books called "Pop Sensation"; dude hasn't updated it in nearly a year but I hear he might be starting up again soon ...

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Derek Allen and Jeff Chen

Relative difficulty: Easy (5-ish)

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

Theme answers:

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

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

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

Judith Lee Ivey (born September 4, 1951) is an American actress and theatre director. She twice won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her performances in Steaming (1981) and Hurlyburly (1984).
Ivey also appeared in several films and television series. For her role in What the Deaf Man Heard (1997), she was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Movie. (wikipedia)

• • •

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

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

Take care. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Mammalian hematophage / SAT 7-18-20 / Do-or-die hockey situation / Actor Lane who voiced Mister Ed / Purchases at Ollivanders, in fantasy / Historic region of northern France / Predecessor of Outlook

First man in Maori mythology / SUN 7-19-20 / Ancestor of modern lemon lime / Club setting for scenes in GoodFellas Raging Bull / Worried exclamation from Astro on Jetsons / Palate cleansers between courses / Beat poem allegedly inspired by peyote vision / Pyle's portrayer

Where Samson slew Philistines / MON 7-20-20 / Like ideal poker straight

Popular hair-coloring technique / TUE 7-2-20 / Taj Express destination city

Kingdom of horsemen in Lord of the Rings / WED 7-22-20 / Compound containing an NH2 group informally / Onetime Nissan SUV / Greek peak southeast of Olympus

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

Greek personification of darkness / FRI 7-24-20 / Final challenge of video game level / The Bell of Longfellow poem / Bit of poetry with same syllable count as this very clue / Cartoon referenced in Walt Disney Animation Studios logo

Intestinal neighbors of jejuna and ceca / SAT 7-25-20 / One of fourteen holy helpers in Roman Catholicism / L in Broadway monogram LMM / Introducer of math symbol e / Pigs jocularly / Retailer that hired its first openly transgender model in 2019

Puppeteer Lewis / MON 7-27-20 / Boozer's binge / Trojan War king

Source of beautiful plumes / TUES 7-28-20 / Wok, for one / Fast runner Down Under / Liveliness

Wisecracking bear of film / WED 7-29-20 / Animal known scientifically as alces alces / Mobile device that debuted in 2016

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

Eyebrow-filling technique / FRI 7-31-20 / Pants slangily / Brand with classic wavy varieties / Gymnastics eponym of a double back somersault with three twists / Country whose name is believed to come from ancient Greek for honey-sweet / Hilton pulitzer-winning critic for New Yorker

Landlocked land along the Silk Road / SAT 8-1-20 / Worshiper of goddess Mama Quilla mother moon / Natural feature near Queensland / Former name of subsaharan Africa's largest country / Like the last complete symphony of Gustav Mahler

Longtime media columnist David / SUN 8-2-20 / Bird also known as little auk / Longtime Yankees first baseman Mark / Hedge fund titan nicknamed Palindrome / Gish novelist of Resisters Typical American / Mixed Marriage playwright st john greer / Mythical creature on old Bhtanese stamps

Mets' venue before Citi Field / MON 8-3-2020 / Hawaiian porch / 12, for 1/3, 1/4 and 1/6: Abbr. / Protected at sea / Tuesday, in Toulouse

1933 Erskine Caldwell novel about a wealth-obsessed farm family / TUE 8-4-20 / Supporting timber in home construction / Notorious cinematic flop of 1980 / Certain Olympic athletes since 1900

2002 basketball movie starring Lil Bow Wow / WED 8-5-20 / Major oenotourism destination / Believer in Five Thieves / Big draw for Icelandic tourism

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