Uh Oh Here They Are Again Crossword

Wryly humorous / TUES viii-31-21 / Yard auction caveat / Grassy S American obviously / Mocking smiles

Hey, everyone! It'due south Clare for a Tuesday crossword on the last mean solar day of August! Hope anybody had a great month and is staying rubber. I keep turning on the news and see cars evacuating, and it's hard figuring out whether it's in Northern California (where I currently am) or if it's in the Due south, where Hurricane Ida hit. All I know is emergency responders are absolute heroes.

At present, for something a tad more uplifting, on to the puzzle...Constructor: Eric Bornstein

Relative difficulty: Average

THEME: Food puns...

Theme answers:

• WING Basics (18A: Good snack for a pilot?)
• TOUGH COOKIES (24A: Good snack for a gangster?)
• BARGAINING Chips (39A: Good snack for a flea market dealer?)
• FIRECRACKERS (51A: Good snack for an arsonist?)
• Centre CANDY (62A: Expert snack for an optometrist?)

Give-and-take of the Day: SENECA (6D: Roman philosopher who said "Life is never incomplete if it is an honorable one. At whatsoever point you leave life, if you go out information technology in the right way, information technology is whole") —

Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger, usually known as Seneca, was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and in 1 work, satirist, from the post-Augustan age of Latin literature. As a writer Seneca is known for his philosophical works, and for his plays, which are all tragedies. (Wiki)

• • •

Overall, I thought this was a expert, clean Tuesday. The food-related puns for the theme were fine and clever plenty. I remember from a young age existence told on the soccer field that I was a TOUGH COOKIE ; on another annotation, if someone ever chosen me Eye Candy , I'd probably smack them! There wasn't a existent "aha" for me, as nosotros've seen this type of theme a off-white amount before. Only information technology was well-executed. And it was nice for the sake of making my solve slightly easier that the first part of the theme answers was pretty intuitive based on the identity of the snacker in the clues.

My favorite office of the puzzle was some of the words that we just don't see that often in a puzzle. Like: LITHE , DROLL , BRISK , LLANO , VANISH . I thought the best word in the puzzle was PLETHORA — at that place's just something about that word that rolls off the tongue and looks pleasing. I also liked both the clue and respond with C-SECTION ; I did have some trouble getting the answer because the clue 41D: Delivery option successfully duped me into trying to retrieve of something post-related like "overnight" or "one day." So when I got Chips at the finish of 39A and SASSY (45A) and was confident that they were correct, I was puzzled for a bit longer as I worked out what could first with "cs."

I also enjoyed how the puzzle played with proximity by having related answers near each other — i.e. SETH (12D: Brother of Cain) and ABEL (16A: Brother of Cain) crossing each other, along with RADAR (55D: Speeder catcher) and STOPS (56D: Pulls over, as a speeder) being side by side to each other. With the former, though, I did the downs first and originally put ABEL instead of SETH in at 12D (instead of 16A), which fabricated me spend some unnecessary fourth dimension working my way out.

There were a couple things I wasn't wild about in the puzzle. In particular, I say NO NO NO and not OLE OLE to 22D and 14A. The repetition feels a tad lazy, as you could apply as many of each of those words as necessary to make full space. How many OLE s is too many — or not enough? Having AEIOU (3D) crossing OLE OLE cemented my annoyance. I too didn't similar having both I BET (32D) and I BEG (26D) in the puzzle.

As a whole, I still idea this Tuesday puzzle ended upwardly being a pretty expert solve.

Misc.:

• 60A as DONUT reminds me: Become go your 2 free Krispy Kreme doughnuts! They're giving out two donuts (from eight/thirty to ix/five) to people who are vaccinated.
• The answer TOE TAP (68A) had me standing upward to effort and see just how much of my tap dance routine to "Singin' in the Rain" I could call back from when I was 6. (The respond is about half of information technology!)
• I remember watching GLEE (19D) when it offset aired, and information technology'south been funny to see sometime clips and realize how admittedly cringey information technology truly was.
• This is a total side note, just I've been bingeing (and loving) "Ted Lasso," then I accept to recommend that anybody immediately get and lookout — it's a astounding evidence!
  

Stay safe!

Signed, Clare Carroll, OLE!

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Sarcastic criticism / Mon 8-30-21 / Mix of java and chocolate / Eggplant __ (cheesy dish, informally)

Constructor: BROOKE HUSIC

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (for a Mon)

THEME:  L__CKS VOWEL SHIFT — Each theme answer is a give-and-take or phrase that begins with "L—CKS" or "L—X" (alternate). The vowel shifts in descending alphabetical society (AEIOU). So we have:

• LACKS HEART (18a: "Doesn't have fortitude")
• LEXINGTON (23a: "Domicile of the University of Kentucky")
• LICKS THE SPOON (36a: "Finishes eating ice cream or soup, say")
• LOCKSMITH (51a: "Rescuer for when y'all've lost your key")
• LUXEMBOURG (56a: "Tiny neighbour of French republic")

Word of the Twenty-four hours: RECTO(Correct-paw page of a book) —

Recto  is the "right" or "front" side and verso  is the "left" or "back" side when text is written or printed on a foliage of newspaper  ( folium ) in a jump item such as acodex,volume,broadsheet, orpamphlet. (Wikipedia)

2 body-toes stacked on summit of each other

Happy Monday! It's Megan again (the Renaissance poetry grad student from Boston), excited to be filling in for Male monarch a second time. I'grand all ready to start teaching again on Th, and I'm and then prepare to exist back in the classroom (with masks, just in person) — especially at present that the heat in Boston has died downward a bit!

So today, we have a classic descending vowel puzzle. The v theme answers all begin with the aforementioned consonant sounds (hither, a single syllable offset with an "L" sound and ending with a "CKS" or "10" sound), but the vowel changes for each answer, and it changes in descending alphabetical society. It's a fairly quondam-fashioned kind of puzzle, which is absolutely fine — except when it LACKS HEART, as this 1 often DOES. My apologies in accelerate for the SNARK, but I'll try my best to MAKE NICE.

The theme answers (rather, their clues) simply . . . aren't fun? LICKS THE SPOON has and so much potential! It's a wonderful answer, but the clue only lays at that place, expressionless. "Finishes eating ice foam or soup, say." No joy. No baking cookies with a relative when you were little. None of that. Just an empty bowl. We also have 2 geographical locations (LEXINGTON and Grand duchy of luxembourg) for the L_X themers, for some reason, and their clues ("Home of the University of Kentucky" and "Tiny neighbor of France") are bland. There have to be another Lexington/Luxembourg fun facts floating around out at that place, just begging to exist written into clues. When the puzzle format is this traditional, we demand a little pizzazz, a little oomph, a little *jazz hand motion.* Just because it's a Monday doesn't mean the clues have to exist . . . boring.

Finally — and this is remarkably nit-"picky" (har har), and then experience gratuitous to disagree — LOCKSMITH stands out from the remainder of the pack. It is a compound give-and-take: LOCK + SMITH. The "s" sound hither belongs to the 2d part of the word, "smith," whereas in the residue of the theme answers, the "CKS" or "X" sound all comfortably land in the first word or in the first syllable.

ovules, of course

I found the fill to be rather challenging for a Monday, peculiarly in the NE corner. BILOXI (3d: "Mississippi city on the Gulf of United mexican states") was utterly unknown to me. (I looked it up, and it seems to have been striking pretty hard by Hurricane Ida. I hope everyone down in that location is safe. Accept care of yourselves and watch out for one some other.)

I was stumped on BILOXI, so I was admittedly confounded past AMORS. Information technology seems obvious in retrospect, especially because those little troublemakers appear frequently in the verse I study, merely I've also rarely encountered it in the plural form. AMOR in the singular? Cracking. Got it. Standard crossword fare. But plural? I couldn't parse it. I also struggled with A Sense of taste (6d: "Barely any, as food or potable"). I don't buy the inkling. The situation of the inkling doesn't seem to actually match the situation of the answer. The inkling suggests lack; the answer suggests restrained decadence. No one says, "Oh wow, I'thou starving, I've merely had A Gustation to eat today."

Ii elegant long down answers: INTRICACY and FOOT MODEL. But again, the clues vicious a little flat. I experience similar yous could come up with a fresh, Monday-level clue for Pes MODEL other than: "I who might take a contract with a sandal manufacturer." I mean, yes, factually, it's true. But yous've already gone ahead and made the decision to put FOOT MODEL in your puzzle. Don't requite me a "contract"! Requite me something fun!

I have never heard the term RECTO (see give-and-take of the twenty-four hour period), which was pretty embarrassing for me, since I study quondam books for a living! If you knew it, kudos! And if yous didn't, well, neither did I. But now nosotros do, and nosotros tin share it with our geeky book friends.

Otherwise, a LOT of standard, un-flashy crosswordese in the corners: ALOE / OAR / EMT / Political leader / ELO / ELLE / LAPS / URI / ERIE / DISS / NAAN / ART / NERO. Happy to run across two wonderful women, VANNA White and Laura DERN. Icons, both of them. And I got a chuckle from the eastern department: Trunk on top of TOE on tiptop of SNAIL. Because what is a SNAIL, except for a hardshell BODY stacked on top of a large, squishy TOE? (Don't @ me, malacologists - I know there's a lot more to snails than that, and y'all are doing great piece of work.)

how I like to imagine myself writing today's blog post

Take a groovy Monday, everyone!

Signed, Megan Bowman, Crossword ABD

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Adds insult to injury / Dominicus viii-29-21 / Vinyl collection / Where fruit bat soup is eaten as a effeminateness / Largest object in the Kuiper chugalug

Constructor: Dory Mintz

Relative difficulty: Like shooting fish in a barrel-Medium (some parts a slice of block, only the east side....not and then much)

THEME: Familiar Phrase + ə = (Fill in your ain level of enjoyment hither)! — Add together a schwa somewhere within a familiar phrase to get your theme answers and inkling them with wacky ? clues (which are wackily clued literally!).

Theme answers:

• FANTASY SUPPORTS (22A: Beams of one's dreams?) from FANTASY SPORTS
  
• GO FOR Bizarre (33A: Visit a museum to come across a Rembrandt exhibit?) from GO FOR Bankrupt
  
• FALCON CARESSED (49A: Bird of prey that's gently petted?) from FALCON CREST
  
• THEROUX IN THE TOWEL (67A: Histrion Justin sitting poolside?) from THROW IN THE TOWEL
  
• DERIDE APRICOTS (86A: Brand fun of small orange fruits?) from Stale APRICOTS
  
• GRAVY TERRAIN (102A: Mashed potatoes, on a Thanksgiving plate?) from GRAVY Train
  
• THUNDER Collapse (116A: 4th-quarter meltdown at an North.B.A game in Oklahoma City?) from THUNDER CLAPS (could be ane word or two...)
  

Word of the Day: OMAKASE (I'm cheating a little -- the reply is SUSHI to the inkling 25A: Food served in an OMAKASE meal ) —

The phrase omakase , literally 'I leave it upward to y'all', ^[3] is well-nigh commonly used when dining at Japanese restaurants where the customer leaves it upwardly to the chef to select and serve seasonal specialties. ^[4] In American English language, the expression is used by patrons at sushi restaurants to leave the choice to the chef, as opposed to ordering à la carte . ^[6] The chef will present a series of plates, starting time with the lightest fare and proceeding to the heaviest dishes. ^[7] The phrase is not sectional to raw fish with rice and can contain grilling, simmering and other cooking techniques.

Customers orderingomakaseway wait the chef to exist innovative and surprising in selecting dishes, and the repast can exist likened to an artistic performance.^{[10] [11]} Ordering omakase can be a adventure, merely the customer typically receives the highest-quality fish available at a lower cost than if information technology had been orderedà la carte.^[12] Co-ordinate toJeffrey Steingarten, recounting inFaddya 22-course "memorable feast" that required several hours:

In the U.S.,omakasenormally refers to an extended sushi dinner, ideally eaten at the sushi counter, where the chef prepares one piece of fish at a time, announces its proper name and origin, answers your questions, and guesses what else you might enjoy and how much more you'd like to eat. Y'all await to exist brought the nigh perfect seafood available at that fourth dimension of twelvemonth, fish that will be handled as carefully as a kidney pending transplantation and as respectfully every bit a however-living thing. You lot marvel at the endless training of the defended staff, the precision of their work, their incredible concentration for hours at a time, their lack of pretense, their tranquility. And the dazzler of their knives.

(WIKIPEDIA)

• • •

Hi there! It's Colin (NYC classical pianist) dorsum over again to fill up in for Rex on this late summer Sunday! And what a thrilling and innovative theme for united states of america today! OOPSIE -- I conspicuously fabricated an error in totspeak (run across: 60A). I meant -- What a wearisome well-worn theme with some serious groaners for us today!

Allow me become ane matter out of the manner. I know many readers of this blog are enlightened of King's general frustration level with the quality of Sun puzzles. At times, I concord with him on that front -- if this actually
is supposed to be the flagship puzzle of the damn Federation, then they better get the equivalent of Jean-Luc Picard to man the Enterprise every time it leaves a Starbase. (I promise no more Star Trek TNG references for the residuum of this postal service. Possibly.) That existence said, I exercise notice I enjoy the Sunday puzzles (or tolerate their too oft Dad-joke themes) more than Rex does. Notwithstanding, this 1.....Uh? Oh.....non so much.

Allow'south showtime with the theme. Every bit I mentioned earlier, this is not a new theme concept -- which does not mean it should never exist used once again, of course! Notwithstanding, in my opinion, if such a simple theme as 'add a syllable to phrases' is going to headline the Sunday NYTXW, and then it amend be Adept. I should be smirking, smiling, and ideally laughing at each (or, at to the lowest degree, some) of the theme answers. Simply these actually vicious apartment with me.

The get-go themer to autumn (flat) for me was FALCON CARESSED . I flew though the NW corner, jumped to the NNW considering YES Nosotros CAN (30A: Come across 4A) literally told me to, so got stuck and so couldn't keep plowing east. So in looking to the due south, I easily got CONN (31D: N.Y. neighbor ) and reluctantly got ABACI (32D: Calculators of old). Truth exist told, I really hoped I was wrong with that.....uh, oh....I wasn't. Biggest issue was non sure if I was more annoyed with the fact that ABACI was in the puzzle...or that I got information technology with but the A----. Long story short (besides late) I got to FALCON CARESSED and that'south when I literally told my wife out loud -- 'I figured it out. And I don't think I'thou going to like it.'

The other themers are just plain rough. No way to sugarcoat it. I have very little patience for using the give-and-take Baroque equally a pun for BROKE (not to mention it required 14D to be the incredibly inelegant visual of ETSEQ). I've just heard information technology too many times. That looks just a wee Disgusting (59A: Gross) to me. I feel like I can say that honestly separating my music background and hearing more BACH/Back Baroque/Bankrupt HAYDN/HIDING "jokes" than anyone should always be exposed to. Merely stick with viola jokes (which in full general are Ever funny)! On that note (ouch....unfortunate pun there), if you want truly entertaining music humor, please bask some PDQ Bach (the genius Peter Schickele):

A few of the other themers FARED ameliorate, simply simply slightly. Biggest trouble with a big erstwhile Sunday puzzle is that if your theme doesn't piece of work, yous take an even larger sheet to expose it's bug.

One last observation regarding the themers: I think I would accept appreciated (maybe not liked, but at least appreciated) if all the theme answers had the added syllable in the aforementioned place, or at to the lowest degree in the same location in the sequence. Or if the themers were all somehow wackily related? Over again, I fully admit information technology's easier to point out flaws in the theme than to come upward with a tight Dominicus-worthy set....but I besides don't remember I'm wrong. (Right?) We did get three dissimilar vowels calculation the schwa (A/Due east/O), which I did notice and appreciate....but I also noticed that nosotros didn't get all 5 vowels in the gear up.

I'd like to take a moment and point out some clues in this puzzle that I really did savor. In general, my favorite kind of clues are ones that take a regular interesting-ish word OR Then (76D: ...ish) and go far fun/enjoyable/clever/spicy/crossword adjective significant 'proficient'. For instance, INTER (11D: Lead-in to com or net, but non org) and Card (90A: Something rectangular that might have more than iv sides). Neither of those words is peculiarly exciting, and only 4 and v letters -- but I liked that those clues made me remember for a 2d in a style that I hadn't thought virtually those words (or words in the clues) before. I also appreciated the inkling for ESCALATOR (47D: Nonstop flight?). What I didn't capeesh was how cruel that section was for me. I am all for crunch, both in my late week crosswords, and in my spicy sushi rolls (ideally served in an OMAKASE meal! (see discussion of the day, in a higher place)), but man that I struggled at that place in the mideast. RAMAPO, MITER, tough inkling on EPIDEMIC (especially now!), I definitely had some DISDAIN for the region. Again -- I don't mind beingness difficult, merely that section felt off-residuum with the balance of the puzzle (to me, evidently). I likewise confidently wrote in OR And then (76D), simply so second guessed myself because I already had IF And then locked in at 38D: "In that case...". That only made that region more than difficult for me to parse. Surely they wouldn't duplicate the give-and-take SO with such similar clues, right? Uh...oh....yup, they did.

Otherwise I plant this adequately piece of cake/standard for a Lord's day puzzle. A few mistakes along the way, for sure though. I very confidently wrote in OVERSLEPT for (40D: Didn't hear the alarm, say) instead of SLEPT LATE.  I had ADVERT before ADPAGE (8D: Spot for a perfume sample in a mag, maybe) -- and I'1000 glad I was initially wrong.

Side note: When I was a kid all the magazines we got had perfume and cologne AD PAGES in them -- did anyone alive e'er open that little folded over part of the ADVERT and think -- 'I want to smell like this! Information technology smells similar cool water! I must emit this scent from all of my pores!' ?? Just asking. For a friend.

I also find information technology very telling to me that in perusing this puzzle after completing it, I found true difficulty in choosing a 'Word of the Day' to postal service at the height of this weblog. I honey when the answers teach me something I didn't know, or at least if the clue teaches me something almost the bodily word that I did not know. Crosswords are nigh the beauty and fascination of our language. But at the end (or commencement) of the day, this puzzle did not inspire either of those sensations for me. This was definitely not my favorite Dominicus effort. I wish that it were, but sadly that's non enough to Make IT SO.

Signed, Colin Fowler, Courtroom Musician of CrossWorld

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Mag whose outset cover featured Michael Hashemite kingdom of jordan and two young fans / SAT 8-28-21 / UK's tallest building named for its look / Symbol for stock volatility in finance / Sarcastic remark to a slowpoke / Western urban center on the Humboldt River / Title hero of a 2021 Pixar film

Constructor: Julian Lim

Relative difficulty: Challenging

THEME:  None

Give-and-take of the Mean solar day: Natural numbers(29D: Some are natural: Abbr. => NOS.) —

Inmathematics, the natural numbers  are those used for counting (as in "there are six  coins on the table") andordering (as in "this is the 3rd  largest city in the state").

• • •

Just not my solar day. Really didn't like the cluing on this 1 at all and and then even though there are several fine entries, the solving experience was rough and unpleasant. Maybe if I had whatever idea what "Span of Spies" was, or who was in information technology, the experience would've been slightly more tolerable, but probably only slightly. The main trouble for me was the middle. Virtually all of information technology. I simply had no way in. Never heard of THE SHARD (5D: U.K.'south tallest edifice, named for its look). Thought ELKO (23D: Western city on the Humboldt River) was RENO, and so ENID. And on and on. I had EDITS and somewhen AFTER Political party and that is all I had in the middle. Bottom finished, top finished, middle ... empty. Wanted an actual creature, not ASLAN , so fifty-fifty with -LAN in place I just kept trying to think of animals. Oh, I guessed THRASHER , so that was in at that place too, merely it wasn't much help. Couldn't bring myself to write in SOUP for 38D: Stock holder because it seemed then stupid. "Holder?" Sigh, any. Merely the real backbreaker in the middle, the matter that, once corrected, helped me finally get traction and piece of work my style to the end, was "GIVE IT A SEC," which was the cool answer I was sure was correct for 12D: "Be patient" ("GIVE IT TIME"). That A SEC just killed me. When I finally decided to have it out, I wrote in Tin can at 36A: Spam might be kept in information technology, and that started everything going in the right direction. Tin can gave me LINES and ANGRY and and then -THING gave me HOT and and so SOLO HOMER and on to the end. Merely honestly this was just grueling, with almost no ameliorating sparkle or cleverness. And the cluing, I just don't sympathize...

Nighttime HUMOR " is non a phrase I've e'er associated with "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." I take watched that movie a million times and never thought it "dark." Yep, a guy has various limbs chopped off and they spurt blood, but honestly at that place'southward no "darkness" to that scene at all. The picture is zany. It's comedy. It'due south parody. Nighttime shmark. It's downright light-hearted. Didn't know S.I. FOR KIDS existed. I'm sure that's supposed to be a marquee answer, merely if a magazine falls in the woods and I'm non there to hear it ... I can't appreciate it likewise much. Also, S.I. FOR KIDS . it turns out, simply isn't the championship of the "magazine" in question. Here's wikipedia's first line: " Sports Illustrated Kids  ( SI Kids , trademarked Sports Illustrated KIDS , sometimes Sports Illustrated for Kids ) is a monthly spin-off of the weekly American sports magazine Sports Illustrated . ." "Sometimes"????? So we go a "mag" that's "sometimes" this title, and we get information technology in fabricated-up abbr. form. Pfft. Cluing COURTESY via a random quote was cruel—that's a long answer to give over to a mere backup-the-blank clue. No joy there. Haven't been paying much attention to new movies considering theaters haven't been open up that long then " LUCA " got by me, I'm afraid. Had U.S. Post before U.S. Mail (I blame this on my actual home mailbox, which says "POST" on it). I oasis't heard the term FLAME WAR for what feels like decades, so I had real trouble remembering the kind of "state of war" I was dealing with. I think " Permit'S Practice THIS THING !" is valid and good and belongs in the heart (37A: "Set for action!"). And I like Subsequently PARTY . Zippo much else here interests me. And there'south a lot of AONE TREY YESES OGRE ADT DADAS ANION SOLTI ADHOC NOS LIETO HEE HAW ROM PSHAW STILE ERST going on here. That is, a lot of gunky short crosswordesey and somewhat erstwhile fill. The SE corner was piece of cake, just that's the but part I moved through smoothly... actually, the NE was pretty pliable too. Simply overall, a slog; a slog that started with me writing in HYPO / OTHER instead of TREY / YESES (1D: Long shot, informally / Cavalcade on a survey), and never got much more pleasant. YESES, yeesh. Super glad this is over.

Signed, King Parker, King of CrossWorld

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San Francisco-based candy brand / Fri 8-27-21 / Chef Lewis who wrote The Sense of taste of Country Cooking / Production whose name comes from the French for without caffeine / Staff of life whose name derives from the Sanskrit for bread / Unit of measure in a tongue twister / Greek goddess who could turn water into wine / Choreographer who posthumously received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2014

Constructor: Robyn Weintraub

Relative difficulty:  Piece of cake-Medium

THEME: none

Word of the Mean solar day: EDNA Lewis(19A: Chef Lewis who wrote "The Taste of State Cooking") —

Edna Lewis  (April 13, 1916 – February xiii, 2006) was a renownedAmericanchef, teacher, and writer who helped refine the American view ofSouthern cooking. She championed the utilise of fresh, in season ingredients and characterized Southern food as fried chicken (pan-, non deep-fried), pork, and fresh vegetables – most especially greens. She wrote and co-wrote iv books which covered Southern cooking and life in a modest customs of freed slaves and their descendants.

• • •

The longer answers hither (gorgeous as e'er from Ms. Weintraub) end up overcoming what feels like a tidal wave of brusque fill up that inundates the grid. There are only six 3's, but there are roughly [starts counting, gives upwardly, takes a guess] six thousand 4's, and a minor wheelbarrowful of 5's, and then that for too much of this solve I felt like I was hacking through undergrowth. Information technology's got kind of a deadening shape, more like a generic early on-week themed filigree, and the consequence is a lot of short answers. At present it's definitely got a themeless respond count (this one's seventy—typically, themelesses have to have 72 or fewer entries), which ways nosotros still go a sizable number of longer answers—the flashy stuff that generally makes the Friday (and if we're lucky, the Saturday) worth doing. Simply for some reason this detail 70-answer grid looks and (oftentimes) feels more similar an early-week grid, which in this case ways information technology's chock full o' the brusque stuff. Now, the short stuff isn't particularly bad. Every bit usual with this constructor, the grid is very nicely polished. I but felt similar I was kind of slogging through a FEN of 4's and five'south to go to the adept stuff. And yet I still say: worth it. Because the practiced stuff is truly vibrant, and the colloquial phrases in particular are original and refreshing (" OH IS THAT And then ...?"; " BEFORE I FORGET ..."; " ANSWER ME !"). You've besides got CAKE TOPPERS and Sex activity TAPES and RED HERRINGs flying effectually the grid (propelled by TELEKINESIS , no dubiety; everyone knows SEE'S processed gives you TELEKINESIS ).

Never thought I'd say this, but Horsefeathers McGee is right
(1A: What takes a licking and keeps on sticking)

I was slower than I ought to have been today because of two perfect still somehow wrong long answers. Start, I wrote in Articulate Nighttime before CLEAR SKIES (17A: Stargazer'due south need). I was sad to see my answer go, as it felt more than evocative and poetic to me. Also, more directly related to gazing at stars (you practice that at nighttime, generally, right?). Then I wrote in ROSE GARDEN instead of ROSE BUSHES (27D: View from the Oval Office), and in that case I definitely think my respond was better. It's literally the ROSE GARDEN that yous wait out on from the Oval Role, isn't it? I've never been ... but ... I thought that'south what it was chosen. Yes, here ... google seems to think that's right:

Now I can't argue, those roses practice come in bush form, but especially if you are cluing it as a "view" (which implies a kind of artful totality), I call back the answer has to be ROSE GARDEN. "Bushes" was a difficult landing, a very rough return to world.

The merely other struggle I had was the NE corner, where the TOAD clue meant nothing to me and OENO , same (I know OENO as a very very crosswordesey prefix, not a goddess ... I take read a ton of Greek mythology and yet seem to have missed her entirely). Then I also did not know EDNA and calling Grit a [Sandpaper specification] simply seemed bizarre to me ... is in that location non- Grit sandpaper? Does it come in Depression- GRIT grade? Sandpaper Lite? If you lot'd said "property" instead of "specification," well then now nosotros're in business organisation. I follow you. Only "specification" just threw me. And so I spent most of my stuck-time stuck in a patch of 4's. A bit of unpleasantness. Simply all in all, this was fun.

Signed, Male monarch Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Bygone Chevrolet division / THU 8-26-21 / Capisce in '70s slang / Jargony rationale for business merger / First space probe to enter Saturn'southward orbit / Thespian Williamson who played Merlin in "Excalibur" / Pink alcoholic drink / Predecessors of Lenovos / Real first proper name of Spider-Human villain Doctor Octopus

Constructor: Ashish Vengsarkar

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: CROSS-COUNTRY (40A: I way to run ... or a hint to 4 geographical intersections found in this grid) — four pairs of regularly-clued answers cross at a mystery alphabetic character that belongs to neither answer; that letter of the alphabet, when entered, forms the names of countries in both directions. So ... when the answers cross, each one turns into a land. The mystery messages are R, I, N, and A, which tin can exist anagrammed to make IRAN, but ... I accept no idea if or why I'm supposed to be anagramming at the finish, then maybe I'm but seeing things, or trying to make the puzzle do more than it's doing...

Theme answers (the carmine messages are the extra letters, where the theme answers cross to form countries):

• SURINAME / MALI (21A: It comes get-go in People's republic of china, just second in the U.Due south. / 4D: Bad start?)
• NORWAY /RWANDA (9A: "Not a chance!" / 11D: Championship character in a classic John Cleese comedy)
• NIGER / BENIN (68A: Media exec Robert / 58D: Hippie happening)
• PANAMA / TONGA (72A: First airline to consummate a circular-the-globe flight / 57D: Grab by pinching, as an water ice cube)

Word of the Day: CASSINI(1D: Start space probe to enter Saturn's orbit) —

The Cassini–Huygens  space-research mission (kə-Meet-neeHOY-gənz), commonly chosen Cassini , involved a collaboration among NASA, the European Space Bureau (ESA), and the Italian Space Agency (ASI) to send a infinite probe to study the planet Saturn and its system, including its rings and natural satellites. The Flagship-course robotic spacecraft comprised both NASA'sCassini space probe and ESA'sHuygenslander, which landed on Saturn's largest moon, Titan.Cassini was the fourth infinite probe to visit Saturn and the first to enter its orbit. The two craft took their names from the astronomers Giovanni Cassini and Christiaan Huygens.

Launched aboard a Titan IVB/Centaur on October 15, 1997,Cassini was active in space for near 20 years, with 13 years spent orbiting Saturn and studying the planet and its organisation after entering orbit on July 1, 2004. (wikipedia)

• • •

I really like the underlying idea of this puzzle, but it is really lacking in follow-through. The whole mystery/extra-letter thing only isn't well-explained or coherent enough. These are unclued letters, so what exercise I do with them? OK, I encounter a country there ... why? Why this country? Am I even supposed to be rearranging these messages? Considering they aren't in any clear grid lodge (height to bottom or left to right). I estimate you can kind of read "IR" across the top and "AN" across the bottom, kinda, sorta, but the puzzle just felt similar it fizzled out. Once I got the revealer and figured out what information technology meant, I enjoyed seeing the countries come up into view. Only this puzzle kind of lost its identity somewhere. Information technology looks similar a meta puzzle (a puzzle that has another puzzle to solve after you've filled in all the squares). If you've done many meta puzzles, then you probably immediately looked to the extra $.25 (R, I, N, A) to run into what you could do with them. You lot might even have circled them, if you solved on paper (or printed the puzzle out, every bit I always do). And if you looked at those letters, y'all probably saw IRAN very chop-chop. The question was: "Why?" Besides, "Is that all?" Metas tend to accept titles that hint at what you should be looking for. Also, when y'all get the meta answer, typically, you *know* got it. There's a tremendous feeling of "Aha!" Only here, without a title to betoken yous in the correct direction, without puzzle notes, there's no "Aha!" In that location's just a "huh?" The theme had all these swoops and flourishes but it only couldn't stick the landing. Equally a solver, I'm but left alone with a agglomeration of maybe random letters, with no instructions and an eerie sense that either a. I'1000 missing something or b. that's all there is. Neither a. nor b. is particularly satisfying.

The merely other thing I take to say well-nigh this puzzle is: RULY ? Truly? (55A: Bully and orderly). I want to say that I am gruntled about ruly, but that'due south actually the opposite of how I experience ... I remember. Is "gruntled" a word without the "dis" in front of information technology? Because I know RULY is not a give-and-take without the "un" in front of it. Come on. Endeavor using it in a sentence today and see if anyone understands what the hell y'all're saying. "What RULY children you lot have!" "How dare you!" The grid is oversized today (16x15), in gild to allow the revealer to sit securely in the heart, so your sluggish time might be partly due to that. I've never heard of CASSINI, a proper noun I am familiar with only when information technology follows OLEG (a crosswordese legend), so getting started on this ane in the NW was a scrap of a challenge, despite many of the shorter answers upwardly in that location coming easily. The MALI / SURINAME crossing wasn't working, obviously, and was made tougher by the fact that MALA- seemed like maybe information technology was a real prefix ... (?) ... look, you give me iv letters, I'm going to assume the reply is four letters long. But I stumbled downward to the center, got the revealer, and then the premise was (more often than not) clear and everything was piece of cake from there on out.

the moment I figured things out

Somehow, none of the other country crosses gave me trouble. Nothing else almost the grid seems terribly remarkable. Oh, noooooo idea who NICOL Williamson is despite *owning* "Excalibur" on Blu-ray (9D: Thespian Williamson who played Merlin in "Excalibur"). I probably do know who he is, at least by sight, simply seeing that name come into view was a total surprise. The long Downs in this grid are nice. I demand to wrap things upwards at present. Still have piece of work to practice before my 8:30am course because information technology's the first week of school and some big function of me is still in deprival. Practiced day.

Signed, King Parker, Rex of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Vocalizer Mai with the 2018 hit Boo'd Upwards / WED 8-25-21 / This device makes prepping cherries a breeze / Word that comes from Lakota for dwelling

Constructor: Adam Vincent

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: Say what? — familiar phrases are reimagined as phrases describing a type of utterance, all of them clued as an alleged example of that kind of utterance; the second discussion in the theme reply is given a different pregnant in each case; thus:

Theme answers:

• MASS Appeal is clued as anentreatment a priest might brand at mass (17A: "Please go on your generous support of the church") (
• PITTER PATTER  is clued as patter one might use to militarist carmine pitters (27A: "This device makes prepping cherries a cakewalk")
• ASSEMBLY LINE is clued as aline said past a principal or other school official re: schoolhouse associates (44A: "Students should report to the gym for a special presentation")
• FEVER PITCH  becomes apitch made for anti-fever medicine  (58A: "This medicine will reduce your temperature in no time")

Discussion of the Twenty-four hours: ELLA Mai(41A: Singer Mai with the 2018 hit "Boo'd Upward") —

Ella Mai Howell (born 3 November 1994) is an English language vocalist-songwriter. Her musical career began at London's British and Irish gaelic Modernistic Music Institute in 2014, during which time she auditioned as part of a trio on the 11th season ofThe X Gene. In 2015, she uploaded a four-rail solo EP of originals to SoundCloud titledTroubled, and was discovered on social media by American tape producer Mustard and signed with his record characterization, 10 Summers Records.

From 2016 to 2018, she released three EPs on the label, includingTime,Change, andReady. Her self-titled debut studio album was released in October 2018 and featured the singles "Boo'd Up" and "Trip", which were released on 20 February 2018 and three Baronial 2018, respectively. In 2019, "Boo'd Upward" was nominated for two Grammy Awards: Song of the Year and Best R&B Vocal, winning for the latter, likewise every bit Mai herself being nominated for British Quantum Act at the 2019 Brit Awards. At the 2019Billboard Music Awards, she won three awards, including the award for Height R&B Artist.

• • •

It's non entirely clear why some very straightforward themes brand me go "apathetic" and others brand me get "solid workmanship!" It's an old theme type, this wacky reimagining of familiar phrases, where the 2d words in the theme phrases all change pregnant in the same management (i.e. from their original-phrase meanings into a shared category of meaning—today, utterances). But the oldness of the theme type doesn't mean the puzzle is bound to feel stale. You lot tin execute this theme type well or poorly, and that's all that really matters. Today's seemed more than sufficiently clever to me. When I got down to FEVER PITCH , I nodded respectfully. "Aye, OK, that works." Even though FEVER PITCH really probably works least well of all the themers today—you're pitching anti-fever medicine, so using "fever" adjectivally in relation to "pitch" feels pretty tenuous. And yet FEVER PITCH is probably the nigh vibrant answer of the set, in terms of sheer grid appeal, then I can make some allowances for information technology. The most ingenious of these repurposings is probably PITTER PATTER , a fact I found out only afterwards the puzzle was over—I had so much of the answer filled in from crosses that I eventually just wrote it in without ever looking at the clue. It would not surprise me if PITTER PATTER were the whole reason this puzzle came into being—onetime you notice weird things about a single phrase then bam, an entire theme idea presents itself. At any charge per unit, this theme works fine. I had a fine time. When I say this theme idea is sufficient, for once I am non damning it with faint praise. I liked it. This clears the bar for what NYTXW Wednesday themes should be.

I solved in a giant "U" shape (roughly, from the NW down the west declension along the bottom and then back up the due east declension to the NE). This is an odd solving route for me, especially for an easyish themed puzzle—these usually follow a pretty anticipated top-to-bottom pattern. I but kept working crosses and falling down down down. This is probably why I never looked at the PITTER PATTER clue. Just went right by it. I also somehow never saw the Bluish Land clue (11D: Information technology leans to the left). In that case, I didn't fifty-fifty guess the answer. I got information technology all from crosses without ever in one case checking in on it. Going over the puzzle just at present I was surprised to see it there. Giant answer and I missed it completely. Only 2 answers gave me any real problem today, both of them four letters, both of them sending out all their troublesomeness from the third letter position. I got 1D: Smartphone push button down to HO-E and I swear to you I had no idea what the answer was. Just stared at information technology. "Does the new iOS update come with a HOPE button at present?" Turns out it'due south just the push on the forepart of my phone that I press roughly i million times a day. It doesn't say " Abode " on it and I have never thought of it as a " HOME " push but that'due south what it's called. In googling just now, I learned that apparently the newest phones don't have Dwelling buttons anymore. I love how "old" my 4-yr-old phone is. Y'all say "Planned obsolescence," I say "Instant vintage!" The other four-letter flummoxer was MAYA , a perfectly familiar name but I did non remember that that is the VP'southward sis's proper noun (we accept to know VP sisters now? Effort playing that game with veeps of yore and let me know how it goes). So even at MA-A, I was not certain what I was dealing with. MARA is a name. MALA is a proper name. And the cross was a "?" inkling, and then I had a brief feeling of "uh oh," but then YEA seemed the only possible answer for [Passing remark?], so information technology all worked out.

Wanted BRASSIERE at 8D: Support on the shoulder but it wouldn't fit and and so it turned out to be just the BRA STRAP , a much much amend answer. Had BARD before LORD for Tennyson. I recollect that's information technology for missteps. And that'due south it for this write-upwards. Shout-out to OXEYE for the early traction (14A: Kind of daisy). In modest doses, crosswordese is your friend!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Promise that Aladdin sings to Jasmine / TUE 8-24-21 / Gossip that gets spilled / Vehicle with Vatican City registration plates / A grand slam nets four of these for short / Computer plan that blurs out armed forces installations

Constructor: Jessie Bullock and Ross Trudeau

Relative difficulty:  somewhat harder than the typical Tuesday, but this will vary widely based on your familiarity / non-familiarity with '90s animated picture show song lyrics

THEME:  "I Tin can SHOW / YOU / THE Earth" (32A: With 39- and 44-Across, promise that Aladdin sings to Jasmine (and a hint to the answers to the starred clues)) — theme answers are things that "show you lot the world":

Theme answers:

• POCKET ATLAS (17A: *Miniaturized reference)
• GOOGLE World (11D: *Reckoner programme that blurs out war machine installations)
• PLANETARIUM (23D: *Facility where things are always looking up?)
• "Stake BLUE DOT" (60A: *Iconic photograph taken by Voyager one at the request of Carl Sagan)

Word of the Day: "PALE Blueish DOT"(60A) —

Pale Bluish Dot  is a photograph of planet Globe taken on February xiv, 1990, by theVoyager ane space probe from a record distance of about6 billion kilometers (3.seven billion miles, 40.5 AU), as part of that solar day'southFamily Portrait series of images of the Solar System.

In the photograph, Globe's apparent size is less than a pixel; the planet appears as a tiny dot confronting the vastness of infinite, among bands of sunlight reflected by the photographic camera.

Voyager 1, which had completed its chief mission and was leaving the Solar System, was commanded by NASA to turn its camera around and take 1 concluding photo of World across a great expanse of space, at the asking of astronomer and author Carl Sagan. The phrase "Stake Blue Dot" was coined by Sagan in his reflections on the photograph'southward significance, documented in his 1994 volume of the aforementioned name. (wikipedia)

• • •

Is this what Millennial Nostalgia feels like? I call up it'due south fine, only no more complaints nearly boomer nostalgia, or puzzles built entirely around Beatles lyrics, OK? "Aladdin" was probably the last animated Disney film I saw in the theater. I remember seeing it with friends early in grad schoolhouse, just every bit I remember seeing "Beauty and the Beast" the yr earlier and "The Little Mermaid" with my girlfriend in college a few years before that. By the fourth dimension "Lion Male monarch" striking, I was done. The wall-to-wall Elton John-ness of it all just did me in. Animated moving-picture show fare is kind of a brume afterwards that. We're and then used to ubiquitous blithe movies / series now that people forget what a still-unusual matter animated fare that appealed to adults likewise as children was in the tardily '80s / early on '90s. "The Footling Mermaid" appeared at roughly the same time every bit "The Simpsons" did on Television, and though they're wildly different, they both exploded into a culture that was not used to seeing animation that wasn't solely for kiddies. "Wait, they brand cartoons for grown-ups at present?" It was a somewhat joyous fourth dimension. And now (and for years at present), it's developed animation saturation. So yes, "Aladdin" was a huge deal, equally that whole first wave of Disney films was, and all of those movies have of grade had second lives on Broadway, or in remakes, or what have you. I practice recollect asking for the lyrics (rather than the song championship) is a bit specific

for a Tuesday puzzle

. But otherwise yeah, this theme works. All those themers practice, in fact, show you the globe. I had no idea what " PALE Blueish DOT " was—that is, I'd heard the term, but had never seen the photograph. Information technology's something else. The point of the moving picture is we barely exist. Yous wouldn't know we were there if y'all didn't have someone out where nosotros are.

[the titular dot is roughly one-half way up the rightmost color bar]

This is a good puzzle for demonstrating how theme density affects fill up quality, in that the very worst (in the sense of nearly preposterous) answer, TWO TO , occurs *precisely* where the theme is densest. It is the smash in the stack of answers that form the revealer, in the dead center of the puzzle. Faced with -WOT-, yeah, at that place is not a lot a constructor tin do with that letter of the alphabet combination. In fact, I'm not certain there'southward *annihilation* a constructor (or two constructors) tin can do besides put Two TO in in that location. It's an cool answer, in that no one is e'er likely to actually say it (Ten TO, certain, Two TO , come on, just circular up). But if the just answer y'all'd chuck is the 1 holding the whole theme together, I estimate you tin can await the other mode. Also, the answer does give united states of america the "ii" trifecta, so that's fun—the respond reads like an echo of the Across respond just to a higher place it (" I DO As well ... TWO ... TO ... ").

The themers were the most challenging part of the grid by far (made slightly more challenging by the fact that one of them, PLANETARIUM , had a "?" clue) I had RED OAK earlier RED ELM (?) (24A: Tree with durable wood), and AHA before AHH (61D: "I see at present"). Gotta go. First day of Fall teaching today, and I am, uh, less prepared than I'd similar to be. Also, haven't taught in person since Mar. 2020, so this should exist ... interesting. Fun, I hope. Savor your day!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Source: https://rexwordpuzzle.blogspot.com/2021/08/

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