Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle

Constructor: Brad Wilber and Doug Peterson

Relative difficulty: Easy (well, 3/4 easy for me, and then a bit of a freefall in the NE that was largely stupidity-driven, so I'm just gonna call it Easy overall)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: TARN (42A: Alpine lake) —

: a small steep-banked mountain lake or pool (merriam-webster.com)

• • •

Really enjoyed this one, despite its faint patina of crosswordese (INES SST RAE LETT SETTO DAH OLEG OLES etc). The long answers really hold up—nothing particularly current or flashy, but solid winners nonetheless. Seriously, all the groupings of longer answers are truly fine. And it's worth noting, or confessing, that even though excessive crosswordese bugs me, it's often what gives me my toeholds in tough puzzles, so maybe I should be a little nicer to it. You know, here and there. Not too nice. It's just that the overfamiliar stuff, if doled out in moderation, can be a big help. I mean, I got started by going SOPS SST LETT, not the prettiest combo, but then that opened up SILK BOXERS "ONE FINE DAY"and PET CARRIER, so I mostly forgot about the first few words I put in the grid. Do people really pay a lot of money for SILK BOXERS? Huh. Live and learn. It was definitely a quick solve that went predominantly counterclockwise, starting in the NW and ending up in the NE, and it was in the NE that the wheels came totally off my speedsolvingmobile. If I could eliminate Morse code units from all future puzzles, boy would I? DITs and DAHs ... Gah! Anyway, [T as in telegraph?] just didn't register for me—if it had, I likely would've seen THE CITADEL much sooner (12D: South Carolina college). I had CARPS for CRABS, which was probably the most fatal mistake I made in that quadrant (34A: Kvetches). I really think my answer fits the clue better, and I had the "C" and the "S," so I was reluctant to doubt it. Wanted SNOOTY at 30A: Nose-in-the-air, but then when it didn't work well with CARPS, I doubted SNOOTY, not CARPS, ugh. Thought maybe SNOBBY (?). Again ugh. The biggest ugh, though, was actually having the "IC-" at 21A: Something hanging near Christmas lights and ... coming up with nothing. In retrospect, that seems impossible. I think at that point I was doubting so much, I started to doubt that "C" (from CROCK). But I even tried ICE-something at one point. It's true that the clue is kinda stretching the meaning of "near," but still, ICICLE should've been close to instant with that "IC-" in place, and I just blanked. Embarrassing.

Here are some other things that happened:

Other Things:

24A: Pirates' terms of address (HEARTIES)— I put this in but never felt totally confident of it until I finally sorted out the SNOOTY CRABS part. Piratespeak always seems so contrived to me, and I'm never sure if I have it right.
20A: Sticky pad? (NEST)— Had the "N" and "S" and honestly thought NASA at first (like ... a launch pad?); but this is pretty good, as "?" clues go: nests are made of "sticks," a "pad" is slang for a home ...
40A: Larva of a dragonfly, named after Greek myth (NAIAD) — it's the "named after Greek myth" part of this clue that bugged me; it's not named after "Greek myth," it's named after a *particular figure* from Greek myth that you should've specified in some way.
28D: Spring or fall, e.g. (ACTION VERB) — proud to figure this one out very quickly, less proud that I thought the phrase was ACTIVE VERB.
37D: Post master? (ADMIN) — Had AD MAN for a bit and didn't really get it, but AD MAN is crosswordese and they're always doing wacky "?" clues for ad-related stuff so I wasn't gonna question it ... until it didn't work. I guess here the ADMIN is the person who oversees "posts" (to online forums).
27D: What robots might be used to reduce (HUMAN ERROR)— if scifi has taught me anything, this is a pipe dream. The only thing robots are going to "reduce" is the human population. Stay on your toes, people.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. a message from one of today's constructors, Brad Wilber, about the Boswords 2020 Fall Themeless League:

John Lieb and Andrew Kingsley, the creators of the Boswords summer tournament, now present The Boswords 2020 Fall Themeless League. The League will play out every Monday night at 9 p.m. Eastern in October and November. Solvers may compete as individuals or as a pair. Contestants can also choose a preferred difficulty level. The entire collection of the themeless crosswords will be edited by Brad Wilber. To register, to view the constructor line-up, and to get more information, go to www.boswords.org.

Registration closes on Sunday, Oct. 4, so act now.

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Constructor: Sam Ezersky

Relative difficulty: Medium (11-something)

THEME:"You're Telling Me!"— Phrases starting with "You're," all of which are reimagined in some punny way:

Theme answers:

"... MAKING ME BLUSH" (24A: To a cosmetician: "You're...")
"... OUT OF YOUR GOURD" (30A: To a produce vendor near closing time: "You're...")
"... MISSING THE POINT" (47A: To a bad free throw shooter: "You're...")
"... IN FOR IT NOW" (63A: To a temp worker: "You're...")
"... DARN TOOTIN'" (65A: To a rude driver: "You're...")
"... ONLY AS GOOD AS THE / COMPANY YOU KEEP" (76A: With 98-Across, to an aspiring entrepreneur: "You're...")
"... SOMETHING ELSE" (104A: To anyone who wasn't addressed above: "You're...")

Word of the Day: DR. BOB (20D: Physician who co-founded A.A., familiarly) —

Robert Holbrook Smith (August 8, 1879 – November 16, 1950), also known as Dr. Bob, was an American physician and surgeon who founded Alcoholics Anonymous with Bill Wilson (more commonly known as Bill W.), and a nurse, Sister Ignatia. (wikipedia)

• • •

Leaving aside how very, very loose the theme concept is, there's one lethal problem with this theme, which is that virtually none of themers really land. I think MISSING THE POINT comes close, but everything is awkward or stilted or forced. I don't even know what the pun is supposed to be with IN FOR IT NOW. You fill "in" for someone when you are a temp, but ... yeesh, the "it" is really making this one not work. Cosmeticians might use blush, but they don't make people blush (unless, I guess, they are creating custom, bespoke cosmetics with, like, a mortar & pestle or something). Why is a rude driver *DARN* TOOTIN'?? I get that a "rude driver" might honk their horn, but the "Darn" makes no sense. You would never say "your gourd"—as if the produce vendor only ever carried just one. The "aspiring entrepreneur" one takes up so much real estate and is just limp. None of these have spice or character or zing. It's just old, cornball punning. With the set of alleged addressees / professions not nearly tight enough, and the humor absolutely missing left and right, there's nothing left here. HANGRY, that's a good answer (73A: Itching to eat and irritable about it, in slang). That's nice. But wow, otherwise, a whole lot of nothing here today. Miss on Sunday, and you miss very big.

I struggled with a lot of the fill. Most of the struggle was (surprise) proper nouns, specifically HSIA (so many dynasties...), and SHAN-YU (I saw "Mulan" but no way in hell could I remember that), and "OUR SONG" (not so familiar with the '00s Swift oeuvre) (71A: Taylor Swift's first #1 country hit, 2007). The worst, though, was STARR, like ... what? How is anyone outside of a very small part of Texas supposed to know this [Texas county on the Mexico border]??? There are at least four famous STARRs I can think of, but we get a ... county? Of no note? Bizarre. The entire *county* has 61K people. The county seat is ... Rio Grande City? My own dumb, small-ass county, which you definitely can't name, has over 200K people in it. This is the worst kind of cluing. Zero chance for an aha or any kind of good feeling. All crosses, and then a shrug. Solely here to provide a speed bump, as far as I can tell. No idea why anyone would make that editing call. Clue in MUMBAI tells me nothing about the place; just a piece of trivia I've already forgotten (26A: Home to Antilla, the world's most valuable private residence (27 floors, $2.2 billion)). I had no idea the "L" in "The L WORD" could be anything *but* "lesbian," so I really struggled with that answer (61D: What might be "love" or "lesbian" in a TV show title). Had ELDER before ENEMY (6D: "Never interrupt your ___ when he's making a mistake" (old aphorism)). Weirdly had no idea that the Titanic had MASTs (!?!?!) (47D: One of two on the Titanic). If there was some notably good fill here to write about, I would, but there really isn't, so good day!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. a reminder that *today* (Oct. 4, 2020) is the last day to register for the Boswords Fall Themeless League (a weekly online crossword tournament with over 500 entrants so far). Get the info here.

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Constructor: Evan Mahnken

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: Culinary phrases — ...Yeah that was the best I could do for describing the theme. Theme answers begin by describing what stage food is in the done-ness process.

Theme answers:

RAW FOOTAGE (17A: Unedited film)
HALF BAKED IDEAS (29A: Off-the-wall concepts)
COOKED THE BOOKS (45A: Committed accounting fraud)
BURNT UMBER (59A: Shade of brown)

Word of the Day: CIS (13A: Opposite of trans, in gender studies) —

referring or relating to people whose sense of personal identity and gender corresponds with their birth sex.

(Oxford Dictionary)

• • •

You were expecting an Annabel Monday, huh? Well, sorry. Last month was the last Annabel Monday.

Because I'm not Annabel anymore. My name's August now. I'm not CIS. Turns out, you can learn a lot about yourself when you're stuck inside all the time! Don't worry, I'm still the same graduate student you've been following since high school. Do worry that I'm still tired. Graduate school plus work equals some late nights. Ooh, work has been so awesome though! I work in a bookstore, and we've been moving to a new location, and I spent all of yesterday just unpacking books. It was amazing.

Oh yeah there was a puzzle too. GEE I really enjoyed this one! Fun fill that you don't always see on a Monday like TRUSS and PISAN and the lovely PRIG. I also liked that we got "friend in France" for AMI rather than the tired "___ doing okay?" type clues. (Wish I could say the same for ESE; I'm growing very sick of cardinal-direction clues.) Oh, and I'd never heard of the koh-i-NOOR diamond before; I would've made that my word of the day if there wasn't another word that was more relevant. Did you know it weighs 105.6 carats? That'd make a heck of an engagement ring.

The theme honestly didn't do a whole lot for me this week, other than making me crave Ben and Jerry's Half-Baked ice cream. I didn't really get it until I read the writeup. BURNT UMBER is great fill, though. I think we should have crayon colors every week! Gimme the CERULEAN and GOLDENROD and CORNFLOWER!

Bullets:

REN (60D: Kylo ____, Jedi-in-training seduced to the dark side) — Okay, I'll bite. What's the deal with this guy? Why do so many people think he's so cute? I mean, I kinda get it, I used to be the world's biggest Benedict Cumberbatch fan, but Adam Driver just doesn't have a weird enough face for me to get it. Also I think a bunch of people want him to kiss Rey but I thought he was the bad guy? I dunno. I guess people like bad boys, huh.
TIT (6D: Relative of a chickadee)— No comment.
DICE (51A: Equipment in Monopoly and Yahtzee) — Okay, I finally broke down and bought my first set of Dungeons and Dragons dice. I've been playing the darn game for years, but I usually just bum dice off my friends or, in dire circumstances, Google "roll 1d20". But I got a really pretty set and I'm super excited for them to come in! Oh, you want to know more about my D&D character? Well his name is Tad, he's a third-level barbarian, and he has a pet mouse and he's really scary-looking but he has a big heart. Are there any D&D crossword-doers out there? What are your characters like?
IKE (25D: "I like ___"[1950s political slogan]) — So does everybody!

Signed, August Thompson, tired--but happier--graduate student.

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Constructor: Alan Massengill and Andrea Carla Michaels

Relative difficulty: Easy (very, 2:50)

THEME: Frazzle dazzle— just put an "F" in front of phrases where the first word starts with "R," then clue it wackily, tada:

Theme answers:

FRIGHTFUL OWNER (19A: Scary landlord?)
FRACK AND RUIN (24A: Anti-fuel extraction slogan?)
FRANK AMATEUR (48A: One who freely admits not being any good?)
FRISKY BUSINESS (55A: What Fancy Feast and Meow Mix compete in?)

Word of the Day: ANJOU pear (64A: Green-skinned variety of pear) —

The D'Anjou pear, sometimes referred to as the Beurré d'Anjou or simply Anjou, is a short-necked cultivar of European pear. The variety was originally named 'Nec Plus Meuris' in Europe and the name 'Anjou' or 'd'Anjou' was erroneously applied to the variety when introduced to America and England. It is thought to have originated in the mid-19th century, in Belgium or France. // The two cultivars that comprise d'Anjou pears are the 'Green Anjou' pear and the 'Red Anjou' pear. The 'Green Anjou' pear has a pale green skin that does not change color as the pear ripens, unlike most other cultivars of green pears, which turn yellow as they ripen. The 'Red Anjou' pear originated as a naturally occurring bud sport found on 'Green Anjou' trees. 'Red Anjou' pears are very similar to the original Anjou other than color. (wikipedia)

• • •

There's really not much to say about this one. It feels extremely last-century, in every way. There's a corny one-note theme, with answers that aren't terribly funny, and a grid overloaded with overfamiliar fill of the mostly 4- and 5-letter variety. If you like the theme, you like the theme, I guess, that's a matter of taste, but the grid is truly bottom 10% when it comes to fill. A grid this undemanding, theme-wise, should not have so much tedious old common fill and absolutely nothing snazzy or even interesting going on. "YES WE DO" is, by a mile, the best non-theme answer in the grid (8D: Possible response to "You take credit cards?"), and, well ... that is saying something. This feels like it was written for a lesser paper. It would truly be right at home in any far less prestigious outlet. It's dime a dozen. It works fine, for what it is, but there's just nothing special about what it is. It's filler. It's bygone. I don't get it. And ICERS UIES AEROS SSGTS SSS is a lot to take in a puzzle that isn't offering you anything by way of compensation. So many listless four-letter answers. When your theme has no heft, your grid Needs to be interesting. And today, it definitely is not.

I never saw the theme clues. Can't remember them. I must've looked at the first one, initially, but after that I solved all of them from the back end, based on crosses I had in place, and I honestly didn't even need to look at the clues. I could infer the base phrase, and thus its wacky version, pretty easily from the tail ends of all the answers. -TEUR got me all of FRANK AMATEUR, no sweat. I'm glad I was able to work around those clues, because they are painfully straightforward "?" clues. Not inherently funny, not made funny by the clues. HAHA. Seems like you could've found funnier answers. I wanna say FROTH IRA or FRAILROAD, but then actually don't want to say those things because even an optimal expression of this thing isn't going to be very satisfying.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor: Ross Trudeau

Relative difficulty: Easy (3:23)

THEME:"LOOK MA, NO HANDS" (51A: Cry while doing a stunt ... or a hint to 2-, 7- and 12-Down) — answers are things you could describe as having "no hands" (with a different meaning of "hands" in each instance):

Theme answers:

WATER CLOCK (2D: Something the ancient Egyptians used for keeping time)
GHOST SHIP (7D: Vessel found drifting without a crew)
TOUGH CROWD (12D: Audience unlikely to applaud)

Word of the Day: WATER CLOCK (2D) —

A water clock or clepsydra (Greek κλεψύδρα from κλέπτειν kleptein, 'to steal'; ὕδωρhydor, 'water') is any timepiece by which time is measured by the regulated flow of liquid into (inflow type) or out from (outflow type) a vessel, and where the amount is then measured.
Water clocks are one of the oldest time-measuring instruments. The bowl-shaped outflow is the simplest form of a water clock and is known to have existed in Babylon, Egypt, and Persia around the 16th century BC. Other regions of the world, including India and China, also have early evidence of water clocks, but the earliest dates are less certain. Some authors, however, claim that water clocks appeared in China as early as 4000 BC. (wikipedia)

• • •

Well Tuesday felt like Monday and today felt like Tuesday so the NYTXW appears to be on some kind of one-day difficulty lag this week, but I don't mind. It's confidence-building. Today's theme is nicely executed, but corny in a way I just don't like, as you probably could've guessed. This was a big dad-joke groan to me. No hands on two of these things, no hands ... offered by the other thing. OK. "Ma" doesn't really factor in, but she doesn't have to. She's just along for the ride. This puzzle's theme is basically an elaborate way of expressing the basic fact that "hand" can mean several different things—an unusual grid and unusual set of themers built on top of some pretty standard wordplay. This got more of an "I see what you did there" than a genuine amused response from me, but I did appreciate the grid structure—themers hanging vertically above an Across revealer is not something you see very often. The additional non-theme long answers hanging alongside the themers give the grid some color, and the fill is generally solid. The only cringey moment I had was at 9D: "___ queen!" ("Fabulous!") ("YAS!"), mostly because that phrase feels very wrong (in the sense of "culturally appropriative") coming from a puzzle made and edited overwhelmingly by straight white guys (the term comes from drag ball culture and "was likely first used by black trans women"). But the term is definitely (white, cis) mainstream now, so I guess it's fair game. I wouldn't put it in a puzzle, but I'm not outraged either. It's just a little nails + chalkboard for me.

Never heard of a WATER CLOCK before today (I don't think). Everything else about the puzzle was very familiar. The only issues I had all related to names. I wanted Miss ELLIE (from "Dallas"?) and later put in Miss PEGGY (from ... some show I imagined) before finally (and I mean literally finally) figuring out it was Miss PIGGY. I have read and even taught Sherlock Holmes stories, and I listened to "Scandal in Bohemia" (featuring IRENE ADLER) just this summer on one of my infinite quarantine walks, but somehow still screwed up her last name and spelled it like the tree at first (ALDER). Am never sure what the second vowel in MALEK is going to be (I have similar issues with the *first* vowel in that guy's *first* name), and I turned Lisa BONET into a relative of crosswordese writer Stephen Vincent BENÉT. But that's it for trouble. My only other note on this puzzle is wow Frank GEHRY seems to be having a crossword moment (two appearances inside of four days!). Also, as someone pointed out to me on Twitter, the ACC is Duke's *conference* (so, conf.) not its division (div.) (31A: Duke's N.C.A.A. div.).

Stay safe, take care, etc.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor: Francesca Goldston and Jeff Chen

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (high 6s?) (early morning solve)

THEME: TIME IS MONEY (56A: Benjamin Franklin adage ... or a hint to interpreting the answers to the four starred clues) — clues refer to familiar phrases that include "TIME," but in the grid, "TIME" has been replaced by some form of money, resulting in equally familiar phrases:

Theme answers:

SPARE CHANGE (from 'spare time') (16A: *When many people solve crosswords)
HARD CASH (from 'hard time) (28A: *Rough patch)
PASSED THE BUCK (from 'passed the time') (33A: *Occupied oneself)
TWO CENTS (from 'two-time') (42A: *Cheat on, say)

Word of the Day: CITRINES (37D: Gemstones resembling topaz) —

n.
1. A pale yellow variety of crystalline quartz resembling topaz.
2. A light to moderate olive. (thefreedictionary.com)

• • •

Appreciated this one much more after the fact than I did during the solve. Never ever grasped the essential concept while I was solving, and since I (stupidly, today) worked methodically from top to bottom, I didn't hit the revealer til very late, and at first I botched *that* answer quite bad as well. I think I was able to use (half-) knowledge of the theme to get TWO CENTS, but at that point I still wasn't fully aware that all of the themers, despite the "time" change, were still genuine, in-the-language phrases—that was the part that only came into view after I was done and reviewing the grid. I should remember on Thursdays to jump straight to the revealer as soon as I have trouble grasping the theme. Might've helped. Of course, might not have helped, as I would've been jumping into total blank space (always a time killer) and in the case of today's puzzle I wouldn't have actually known the revealer. In fact, even with many crosses in place, my first stab at the revealer was hilariously wrong. I had -MEIS- and I wrote in HOMEIISHEART, thinking ... somehow ... that that answer was an expression of "Home is where the heart is" (beat *that* for epic wrongness, folks!). So the cleverness of the theme concept came to me very slowly, and never fully arrived during the solving time, which made the whole thing a bit frustrating. In retrospect, I can admire the concept.

It's weird how I fell into *perfectly* hidden traps (or "traps," I guess) over and over today. The worst was EATS IT UP for 2D: Loves every second of something (LAPS IT UP). This worked for so many of the crosses (all but two, in fact) that I didn't question it. I had tried and failed to understand 1A: Relief from the desert? (ALOE), and so I'd forgotten about it, and having STARE CHANGE in the theme answer ... well, it's a theme answer; I just figured something weird was going on that I didn't understand yet. Brutal, brutal mistake. I also wrote in (the much more appropriate) HAR HAR instead of HAH HAH at 5D: "Everybody's a comedian," resulting in yet another wrong letter in that first themer (STARE CRANGE!), as well as a wrong letter in the first position of the *second* themer. It was as if these mistakes were designed to cause maximum theme miscomprehension, though I think they were just results of bad luck and the malfunctioning of my own dumb brain. I actually wrote in PASSED THE TIME at 33A and couldn't get it to work at one point, stumbling onto the theme without even knowing it. Fun. Never heard of CITRINES (the blog software is red-underlining it right now) and couldn't parse the Beatles clue so ended up with Lennon writing the opening lines of "I Am the Walrus" ON A COD (which seems like something you might actually try to do ON ACID). Had HOOT for RIOT, yet another theme answer-wrecking mistake (52D: Thigh-slapper). Everything that could go wrong did, themewise, and yet my time was still within reasonable Thursday range, so it's possible the puzzle was actually much easier than it seemed to me. As far as the fill goes, it seemed solid enough. I thought the SHOAL was the shore and not the fish swimming off of it (48A: Group of fish), which it is—primary meaning is sandbank or sandbar, particularly one that constitutes a navigation hazard. But it can also mean a large group of something, particularly fish. You gotta go down the definition list, but it's there.

Favorite clue today was 51A: "It" factor? (HORROR) ("It" is a HORROR novel (by Stephen King) and movie, in case you didn't know). Bye now.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor: Sam Buchbinder

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (5:49)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: ARMATA di Mare (Italian fashion label) (41A) —

• • •

Found this one solid, if a bit drab. Attempts at currency and hipness and slanginess occasionally felt forced (who has *ever* responded to a door knock with "WHO DAT?"??) (is AXE-throwing genuinely faddish? Was it ever?), and the longer fill could've been a lot snazzier, but the puzzle holds up OK, for the most part. Sadly, the part that didn't hold up, for me, was the part where I finished up, so I was left at the end with a pretty bad aftertaste. I'm talking about the SW corner, which is a heap of cobbled-together abbrs. (GWBUSH) and awkwardly written-out numbers (U.S. TEN) and singulars that should never be singular (MOB ... TIE? Just one?) and whatever you wanna call "AH, I SEE." Yipes and yeesh to all that. There was no other concentrated winciness, though, that I could see. ARMATA di Mare was a total "????" and of course I wrote in ARMANI there at first, but I'm gonna assume that that "fashion label" is *massive* and that I just don't know it because I don't really follow fashion labels (actually, I don't have to assume that last part because it's definitely true). CALICOES looks super-dumb with the "E" in the plural, but I guess those are the pluralizing rules ... I think I just don't like fabrics in the plural (cats in the plural, however, would've been just fine). I just didn't have the usual number of "cool!" moments while solving this one. In fact, I don't think I had a single one. Sorry, I mean, "I believe that I had NARY A ONE." Feel the quaintness!

Why are there OLIVE PITS in your Greek salad? Are most Greek salads made with unpitted olives?? Or is the idea that the pits are "left over" in the course of *making* the salad? And what is with the clue on ATE? Why!? The NYTXW relies so heavily on "groaner joke" humor in general, in so many of its themed puzzles, does it really have to steer *into* the "groaner joke" here for a simple word like ATE? Also, the "joke" ... is terrible, even from a "groaner" perspective, because ATE is a homophone of EIGHT so I assumed initially there was some actual time-of-day joke happening ("ATE a clock" / 8 o'clock???). But no, the ATE joke is the "consuming" part ... it's so bad, on so many levels. Hardest thing for me to get today was HANGS—it is a very reasonable (if highly slangy) synonym for "Chills," but wow I needed every cross. I think that's it for me today. Please enjoy the splendor of autumn!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor: Brian Thomas

Relative difficulty: Easyish (6:23)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: INTER MILAN (12D: Italian soccer club with three Champions League titles) —

Football Club Internazionale Milano, commonly referred to as Internazionale(pronounced [ˌinternattsjoˈnaːle]) or simply Inter, and known as Inter Milan outside Italy, is an Italian professional football club based in Milan, Lombardy. Inter is the only Italian club never to have been relegated from the top flight of Italian football.
Founded in 1908 following a schism within the Milan Cricket and Football Club (now A.C. Milan), Inter won its first championship in 1910. Since its formation, the club has won 30 domestic trophies, including 18 league titles, 7 Coppa Italia and 5 Supercoppa Italiana. From 2006 to 2010, the club won five successive league titles, equalling the all-time record at that time. They have won the Champions League three times: two back-to-back in 1964 and 1965 and then another in 2010. Their latest win completed an unprecedented Italian seasonal treble, with Inter winning the Coppa Italia and the Scudetto the same year. The club has also won three UEFA Cups, two Intercontinental Cups and one FIFA Club World Cup. (wikipedia)

• • •

Couple of answers I found too grim for my tastes (EBOLA SCARE, "I'M HIT!"), and there's an obsession with Scrabbliness that I find a little cutesy (especially when it results in not-so-great-results like JESU / MACJR). Not a huge fan of the extra choppy grid. But in the main, the fill is solid, and there are some nice longer answers (FOOD DESERT, HOVERCRAFT, AFROBEAT, BOO BIRDS, I'M SURE OF IT) that make the experience feel worth it. Also helps (my mood) that it's on the easy side. Most of my trouble was in the NE and SW—especially the SW, where I had trouble with OL' MAN RIVER and then wrote in OLD and screwed everything up, however briefly. Also had "NOT on good terms" and COMPELS down there for a bit, and never fully grasped RIM until I was done (even now, it seems pretty tenuous; I guess the "corona" is the RIM of whatever object is doing the eclipsing...). Also thought the [Far-off explorer] was a SPACE CADET. And there was no way I was going to get from "weaponry,"CAST IRON being known to me only as a pair words that can precede "skillet." But crosswordese fluency / experience with ambiguous dental clues got me DDS, and OVID was a gimme and EROS wasn't tough, and, I don't know, I guess FATS DOMINO eventually got me out of trouble. In the NE, my problems were fewer, but wow, *INTER* MILAN? Never heard of it. I know of AC MILAN, which seems to be the (much) more successful team. INTER MILAN won three Champions League titles, OK, but two of them were in the '60s. I had to get every bit of INTER from crosses. Otherwise, no real holdups with this one.

I don't want to accept WHAP as a thing (1A: Smack!). My start in the NW was a little sticky because of that, but more because of a very unfortunate mistake one-two. The "one" was RAIL and the "two" was OLIVE. I really thought RAIL spider was a slam dunk, and then when OLIVE worked in the cross, and seemed a defensible answer for 19A: Vodka go-with, I just went with it. But no, it was HOBO TONIC all along. Do you put olives in a vodka martini? I would never drink a vodka martini, so I don't know. The way I fixed that corner was weird: I worked backward from CYAN (23A: Color in a color printer) ... CYAN to RACY to TONIC to HOBO. And then off I went. And now, to bed. See you Sunday.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor: Gary Larson

Relative difficulty: Medium (10:16)

THEME:"Pi R Squared"— "PI R" appears in ... squares ... several times :/

Theme answers:

CONSPIRACY THEORY / EMPIRE STATE
PUMP IRON / PIRATE'S BOOTY
VAMPIRE BAT / SPIRE
RESPIRATORY SYSTEM / PIROUETTES
SPIRO AGNEW / SPIRIT
TAPIRS / AWE-INSPIRING
MISSISSIPPI RIVER / BABY ASPIRIN

Word of the Day: MARGO Price (73D: Country singer Price) —

Margo Rae Price (born April 15, 1983) is an American country singer-songwriter and producer based in Nashville, Tennessee. The Fader has called her "country's next star."Her debut solo album Midwest Farmer's Daughter was released on Third Man Records on March 25, 2016.^[8]^[9] The album was recorded at Sun Studio in Memphis, Tennessee, and was engineered by Matt Ross-Spang. The album was recorded in three days. On tour, she is backed by her band the Pricetags.
In December 2018, Price received a nomination for Best New Artist at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards. (wikipedia)

• • •

Wow, this really needed ... something. Something ... else. Something besides a relentless succession of randomly-placed PIRs.Not sure how you do something like this, on a Sunday, with all that real estate, and somehow *don't* incorporate a circle into the mix somehow. At a minimum, the PIR squares should be laid out in a way where they form a circle, or ... I don't know, *something*! Also, the title is just "uh, here's the gimmick, we're just gonna put it in the title because we have no ideas, yeah it's dumb and unimaginative, whaddyagonnadoabout it?" Some of the themers would be perfectly fine, good even, as stand-alone answers, but as a Sunday theme concept, this PIR-square stuff is pretty weak. Took a while for me to figure out the gimmick, largely because I didn't look at the title first. Ran into the theme at RESPIRATORY system, when I had a few seconds of "wait ... it's spelled RESPATORY??! ... am I being Punk'd?" followed by "ohhhhhhhh, ok." And then it was just PIR after PIR after PIR after PIR. I looked at the title when I got PIR because I had no idea why you would rebus those letters, which look stupid in a square all by themselves. I figured maybe there was some meta-puzzle going on where all the rebus squares were going to spell out some message. But nope, PIR PIR PIR PIR PIR PIR PIR, that's the message, enjoy.

Not much trouble today, difficulty-wise ... speed was impeded almost entirely by finding and then entering the rebus squares (lots of extra keystrokes). There were a few hesitations, but that's about it. I think I get BITMAP confused with SITEMAP (?) so though I wanted BITMAP, I had to leave the last three letters blank because I just didn't trust myself (107A: Computer image format). Wasn't entirely sure if Lily ALLEN was -EN or -AN (also, haven't thought about her in like a decade, so it took me a few beats just to retrieve her name) (20A: British pop singer Lily). I have listened to MARGO Price a bunch and still had no idea who [Country singer Price] was until I had MARG-. I don't really slot her as a country singer, though I guess she's got some Venn-diagram overlap with that genre, sure. I had OPA before OMA (both of them answers I would be happy never to see again ... OPA being the male equivalent of OMA) (114D: German granny). Last thing in the grid was TOY (104A: Kiddy litter?), which I honestly didn't understand at all ... I'm not entirely sure I get it now. I think the idea is that children, i.e. kiddies, leave their TOYs everywhere, i.e. litter the ground ... with them. The issue is that a TOY is a word for small breeds of dogs and "litter" is a group of puppies and between that and the "kitty litter" homophone, I assumed the whole thing was pet-related, maybe. Pfffft. All that confusion for three dumb squares. Two long RE-answers is one two many (REIGNITE, REENGAGE). What is a REE Drummond??? (125D: Food writer/TV personality ___ Drummond). Oh ... "The Pioneer Woman," whose actual name isn't even REE. Mkay. If you think this makes it OK for you to put REE in your grid, please, I beg of you, think again. ENO ONO ONEG ONEL ORO, this write-up is Over.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor: Joe Hansen

Relative difficulty: Challenging (nearly 4, lol)

THEME: FLOWER / GARDEN (5D: With 50-Down, place that this puzzle grid represents) — circled (or shaded) squares spell out kinds of flowers, and (I ... guess?) are flower-shaped:

FLOWERS:

VIOLET
DAHLIA
AZALEA
ORCHID

Word of the Day: LIA Fáil (ancient crowning stone) (28D) —

The Lia Fáil (Irish: [ˌl̠ʲiə ˈfˠaːlʲ], meaning Stone of Destiny (or also "Speaking Stone" to account for its oracular legend) is a stone at the Inauguration Mound (Irish: an Forrad) on the Hill of Tara in County Meath, Ireland, which served as the coronation stone for the High Kings of Ireland. It is also known as the Coronation Stone of Tara. According to legend, all of the kings of Ireland were crowned on the stone up to Muirchertach mac Ercae, c. AD 500. (wikipedia)

• • •

So many things had to go wrong for this to be as unpleasant as it was. First, it's Monday, and Mondays are often very good—the best themes are simple, with a nice, tight, interesting themer grouping, and then squeaky clean fill as far as the eye can see. If you blow a Monday, I get extra mad because it's clearly a day that can routinely be executed to a high degree of precision, overcoming even the occasional editorial malfeasance. But this puzzle ... wow. First, it's way way way too theme-dense for a Monday. What this does is make the grid buckle. The fill is just bad, all over. No one should have to endure stuff like LIA AINTI AGRI YAYAS EKEBY ACIDY ASA ISTO ONTV etc on a Monday. A couple of those, OK, but it was like being assaulted, over and over. Worse, there are no themers with actual ... theme in them? So the revealer was a bear to get without a ton of crosses. And then the cluing, it just didn't compute, over and over. Usually on a Monday I can run the first three Acrosses easily. Maybe I can't get one of them right away, fine, but the clues tend to make sense, anyway. Today, right off the bat, I couldn't understand any of the clues. Whiffed on first two Acrosses and only tentatively guessed the third. BEST ... from that present participle to a simple adjective was yikes (1A: Winning a blue ribbon). And FRAN!?!? I was born there, LOL. Seriously, no idea until (very late, toward the end) I got the "F" from FLOWER. Is it AVOW or AVER!? (14A: State as fact) Who can say? RATED R or RATED X? Shrug. A LEGO is a "toy"? Don't most toys hurt when you step on them barefoot? Four-letter word for [Sweetie]? Lots of options. Just flailing around. Obviously there are easy answers in that NW section too, so it was all ultimately gettable, but only after flopping around, with no real reward for the flopping. Ugh, the longer answers not being themers is so annoying. SERVE TIME instead of DO TIME (3D: Be in jail) ... it's just irksomeness all over. A very hot case of Trying To Do Too Much and just face-planting as a result. If this had been a Tue or a Wed, I'll admit it would've been a little easier to take. But only a little.

Further, AZALEA is a flowering *bush*, and seems slightly out of place in your FLOWER / GARDEN. At any rate, I think of them as flower shrubs more than as flowers, per se. Beyond the theme (and all the yuck fill and vague cluing), I don't get why you give a good word like NICHE such an awful, bizarre "business" (???) clue (11D: Limited kind of market). A NICHE is a "market"? Isn't NICHE the adjective, as in "a NICHE market"? Seems like NICHE goes with "limited," but it's not clued that way. I mean ... your clue could just as easily have been [Limited], tbh. But even that is terrible. The authorial / editorial voice on this one just way far away from my idea of a good time. Take your show-offy "feat of construction" puzzles and ... well, put them somewhere I never see them, but above all keep them far away from Monday (or Friday, for that matter—some days are sacred).

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor: Amanda Rafkin

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (3:29)

THEME: WIN-WIN SITUATION (57A: Circumstance that's good for everyone ... with a hint to 17-, 25- and 44-Across) — themers have the letter string "WIN" inside them twice:

Theme answers:

"BLOWIN' IN THE WIND" (17A: Bob Dylan song that was a #2 hit for Peter, Paul & Mary)
KNOWING WINK (25A: Sly signal)
TOWING WINCH (44A: Device for pulling a vehicle)

Word of the Day: Jule STYNE (62A: "Gypsy" composer) —

Jule Styne (/ˈdʒuːli staɪn/; born Julius Kerwin Stein, December 31, 1905 – September 20, 1994) was a British-American song writer and composer best known for a series of Broadway musicals, including several famous frequently-revived shows that also became successful films: Gypsy, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and Funny Girl. (wikipedia)

• • •

Gotta be brief today. Exhausted. Also, either my wife or I seem to have bumped one of the dials on the stove before we went upstairs to sleep (in her case) or solve (in mine) because after I finished the puzzle I printed it out on the downstairs printer and as soon as I opened my office door I could smell gas. Ran downstairs to find the knob clicked (barely) on. So now it's all I can smell and it's making me sick. Windows open, ceiling fans going ... it's just still in my nostrils. Awful. Also exhausted because my cat got neutered today and his post-op has been ... interesting. He has zero chill so of course immediately he's jumping onto counters and chasing imaginary things and well long story short, blood, blood, blood. Not that much, actually, but a little blood looks like a horror movie, frankly. So back to the vet, ice, cone of sadness, and now a very unhappy cat in confinement for 24 hours. Oh, and somewhere in there I baked a chocolate cake. For my wife's birthday (Wednesday). I suppose I could've spent this paragraph actually talking about the puzzle, and then the write-up could've been less brief, but that's not what my fingers wanted to do, man.

Happy to see the Monday puzzle. Better late than never. No idea what that thing was yesterday, but this puzzle reassures me that someone out there can still make a competent Monday-type puzzle, so I look forward to things being back to normal next week. In the meantime, yes, this theme is just fine. Revealer is original and themers express it well. Not sure how I feel about *all* of the first words in the themers being present participles, but ... no, actually I do know how I feel, which is I don't care that much. A little more variety in word type might've been nice, but it's a pretty restrictive theme. The fill is the fill—bit of a YAWN, listing toward olden (STYNE, BWANA ... ELD) and clunky (ONEBC, NOSTEP, YOS). I had most of my trouble in and around ONEBC, where I had two crosses wrong (one from HIS instead of YOS, the other from BLOTS instead of BLOBS). Also couldn't remember STYNE's name at first. Otherwise, very easy overall. OK, that's it. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor: Rich Proulx

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (~5 min.)

THEME: hand jive — the meanings of hand gestured, clued using ordinal numbers to describe what the various DIGITs do in each gesture (66A: What each number in the starred clues represents):

Theme answers:

HANG LOOSE (18A: *1st and 5th)
VULCAN SALUTE (24A: *1st separate, 2nd and 3rd together, and 4th and 5th together)
VICTORY (39A: *2nd and 3rd separated)
"CAN I GET A LIFT?" (49A: *1st)
"HOPEFULLY..." (60A: *2nd and 3rd crossed)

Word of the Day: VOCAL FRY (39D: Low, creaky speaking register) —

The vocal fry register (also known as pulse register, laryngealization, pulse phonation, creak, croak, popcorning, glottal fry, glottal rattle, glottal scrape, or strohbass) is the lowest vocal register and is produced through a loose glottal closure that permits air to bubble through slowly with a popping or rattling sound of a very low frequency. During this phonation, the arytenoid cartilages in the larynx are drawn together, which causes the vocal folds to compress rather tightly and become relatively slack and compact. This process forms a large and irregularly vibrating mass within the vocal folds that produces the characteristic low popping or rattling sound when air passes through the glottal closure. The register (if well controlled) can extend far below the modal voice register, in some cases up to 8 octaves lower, such as in the case of Tim Storms who holds the world record for lowest frequency note ever produced by a human, a G₋₇, which is only 0.189 Hz, inaudible to the human ear. (wikipedia)

• • •

The theme is fine but getting through this felt like running a punishing gauntlet, where lots and lots of tired fill just kinda shove you around and poke you in your ears and stuff. The problem started at 1-Across, to be honest (1A: Lab test) (ASSAY). Fine word, you might say, and, uh, OK, yeah, it's a word, but it is crosswordy, in that I only ever see it there, and I see it not infrequently; and when words like that pile up, yikes. And it's not just the repeaters, it's the rando stuff like ACTIV and the crosswordese place names like LHASA and LOIRE and then LAO ATOP ASEA PTA SARI GRU etc. on full blast for the whole 15x15 experience. HORAE!? GELID!? Also, there's this ultra-annoying little tendency toward Scrabble-f*cking, with the X and Z and multiple Ks shoved into the grid to either no good or very bad effect. None of these letters are giving you much bang for your buck, and the sections they're in aren't exactly pretty, so what the heck is even happening? AKNOT? Is your "K" worth that? Letters aren't interesting—good fill is interesting. Clean grids are pleasant. That's the direction you want to go in. If you go in that direction, then people can focus on the theme you came up with, which is presumably where you want them to focus.

I've got green ink alllllll over my puzzle print-out. A lot of it is just flagging the tiresome fill, but some if it indicates trouble spots. I can never process [Word that does this if you do this thing to it]-type clues, so SHE (15A: Word that becomes its own opposite if its first letter is removed), crossing a "?" clue in ASH (6D: Outcome of being fired?), crossing LHASA (which I wanted to be either LAPAZ or SUCRE), that whole area caused a bit of a slow-down. Also totally blanked on HORAE, a term I know because I teach classical literature sometimes but omg there are so many groups of goddesses and my brain apparently just can't keep them all sorted (36D: Goddesses of the seasons). Went for ICEIN before FOGIN, of course (53D: Strand at an airport, maybe). I think that's it for genuine sticking points. Except, no, I had trouble with the FRY part of VOCAL FRY, a phenomenon which is somehow both a widespread scourge and a thing I've never heard of, or ... possibly have heard of but have never properly understood. I thought it was just the rasp you get after yelling at, say, a concert or sporting event. It seems like such a slangy recent coinage that the simple word "register" didn't clue me in.

I will close by displaying contempt for 59A: Display contempt for, in a way (SPIT ON), but I'm just gonna sneer at it because spitting in general is repulsive and spitting *on* someone is beyond the pale. Even as a metaphor, gross.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. Happy birthday to my wife, who is the best

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Constructor: Lindsey Hobbs

Relative difficulty: Medium (high 5s)

THEME: DOWN UNDER (55A: Nickname for 18-Across, and a hint to how four answers in this puzzle are to be entered) — themers are all associated with AUSTRALIA (18A: Locale suggested by this puzzle's theme) and are entered in such a way that the answer turns first "down" then "under" (i.e. the answers fold back underneath themselves):

Theme answers:

PLATY / SESUP (i.e. "platypuses")
KANG / OORA (i.e. "kangaroo")
VEGE / ETIM (i.e. "Vegemite")
DIDGE / OODIR (i.e. "didgeridoo")

Word of the Day: Novelist Santha Rama RAU (47D) —

Santha Rama Rau (24 January 1923 – 21 April 2009) was an Indian-born American writer. [...] When India won its independence in 1947, Rama Rau's father was appointed as his nation's first ambassador to Japan. While in Tokyo, Japan, she met her future husband, an American, Faubion Bowers. After extensive traveling through Asia and a bit of Africa and Europe, the couple settled in New York City, New York. Rama Rau became an instructor in the English language faculty of Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, New York, in 1971, also working as a freelance writer. // She adapted the novel A Passage to India, with author E. M. Forster’s approval, for the theater. The play of the same name was produced for the Oxford Playhouse, Oxford, United Kingdom, moved to the West End in London, United Kingdom, in 1960 for 261 performances, and then on to Broadway in New York City where it was staged 109 times. It was adapted by John Maynard and directed by Waris Husseinfor BBC television's Play of the Month in 1965. Although the film rights originally required Rama Rau to write the screenplay, director David Lean found her draft unsatisfactory and was able to reject it, although she is still credited in the titles because he still used some of her dialogue. // Rama Rau is the author of Home to India, East of Home, This is India, Remember the House (a novel), My Russian Journey, Gifts of Passage, The Adventuress, (a novel), View to the Southeast, and An Inheritance, as well as co-author (with Gayatri Devi) of A Princess Remembers: the memoirs of the Maharani of Jaipur. (wikipedia)

• • •

And a KOALA for good measure (31D: Dweller in a eucalyptus forest). Here's a Thursday where looking DOWN UNDER (i.e. looking at the revealer clue first) wouldn't have helped a damn bit, as the revealer points you to 18-Across and the 18-Across clue tells you nothing. So you've gotta get answers into the grid before you can begin to have even an inkling of what's going on, which is fine by me as I tend to plunge right into every puzzle, hacking away at what I can get until the theme just ... sort of ... shows itself. Today, it took a weird lot of time to do that. I made good progress, but for a long time just didn't know how to enter those themers. Would've picked it up much quicker, probably, if I just could've gotten TYPIFIED (5D: Embodied). Clue had me thinking of something much more ... corporeal, and without the "Y" or "P" I couldn't see it ... and without the "Y" or "P" I also couldn't see PLATY/PUSES, though, honestly I didn't stop to think about it too much. Again, I tend to plow ahead. It's not clear to me if stopping to think about PLATY/PUSES would've paid off or just been a time suck. My general philosophy is if you get stuck, even a little, and you can move on, move on. I think the first themer I tumbled to was VEGE/MITE, which was hard because there was no reference to AUSTRALIA in the clue, and nothing at all referring to VEGE/MITE's unique look / texture / taste. Just "brand of sandwich spread" ... yikes. And we not only eat VEGE/MITE in this household, we once stockpiled it when we learned our grocery store was going to stop carrying it (they've since reversed course on this decision, thank god). Anyway, once you get the trick, the puzzle is not hard—typical Thursday, in that regard. And, much to my surprise and delight, getting the theme today made me feel like the struggle was worth it—a simple and very elegant expression of the revealer phrase. A "Huh, cool" rather than [shrug] or "ugh, really?"

Aptly snared by SNARE today (6D: Catch). I had the "R" and wrote in LEARN (?). Like "catch" as in "hear of" or "pick up," as when someone doesn't hear something and says "Sorry, I didn't catch that, what did you say?," which, now that I write it out, really isn't a good substitute for LEARN, but Thursdays can be wacky, so ... yeah. Had a lot of trouble with TRAMPOLINE, as I took "bouncer" in the club / bar security sense and not in the "literally someone bouncing" sense (41A: Bouncer's equipment). And REPO MEN, also very hard, as I couldn't remember the very crosswordesey (and yet still not automatic) RAU. Did not enjoy seeing RAU (a name that is crossword-famous all out of proportion to its actual famousness), but the clue on REPO MEN was really good (47A: Ones coming for a ride?). As with RAU, I had trouble retrieving ATUL's name, but ATUL's book I have laid eyes on many many many times, which means that even though I've seen his name in crosswords far less often than I've seen RAU's name, I resent it much less (i.e. not at all).

Had RANKS before MARKS, that hurt (48D: Grades). Couldn't remember if it was FEY or FAY (30A: Eliflike). Since FEY can mean "marked by an otherworldly air or attitude" (m-w.com), you can see how one might get confused. Found "A WORD ..." very hard but ... it was one of those perfect hard answers where when you first get it you're mad but then after you sit with it you have to acknowledge that it is very much a real expression, clued accurately (37A: "I need to speak with you," briefly). Worst mistake today was a mistake combo. Went with OPAL (AUSTRALIA!) / HEEL, which I felt pretty good about, until none of the crosses worked and I quickly realized it was ONYX / STYX (52D: Traditional gemstone for a seventh wedding anniversary / 63A: Where Achilles took a dip?).

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. only just now seeing the Australian clue on RUM (19D: ___ Rebellion, 1808 uprising in New South Wales). That may be a bit of trying too hard with the theme stuff. Know when to say when.

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Constructor: Damon Gulczynski

Relative difficulty: Medium (5:56)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: JENA Malone (53D: Actress Malone of the "Hunger Games" films) —

Jena Malone is an American actress who has appeared in over 40 feature films since beginning her career as a child actor in 1996. She gained critical acclaim for her film debut in Anjelica Huston's Bastard Out of Carolina (1996), followed by supporting parts in major studio films such as Contact and Stepmom (1998). She subsequently had roles in the cult film Donnie Darko, and the drama Life as a House (both 2001), before having starring roles in the independent American Girl (2002), the dark comedy Saved! (2004), and the drama The Ballad of Jack and Rose (2005).
She co-starred as Lydia Bennet in the 2005 adaptation of Pride & Prejudice before making her Broadway theater debut as Sister James in Doubt, in 2006. Subsequent film roles include supporting parts in the arthouse drama Lying, the biographical drama Into the Wild (2007), and the supernatural horror film The Ruins (2008). In 2011, she appeared in the action film Sucker Punch before being cast as Johanna Mason in The Hunger Games film series, appearing in a total of three films between 2013 and 2015. She also had roles in Nicolas Winding Refn's controversial horror film The Neon Demon, and Tom Ford's thriller Nocturnal Animals (both 2016). (wikipedia)

• • •

Felt like I struggled a lot, but I finished in under 6, so it can't have been *that* difficult. I think falling asleep for two hours (!) on the couch immediately after dinner may have disoriented me a bit, though it doesn't seem to have affected my solving time too much. I liked this one pretty well up top, but then slightly less as I went along, for various not-terribly-serious reasons. I am always here for BAT FLIPS, in whatever form they take, and today they take crossword-answer form, which pleases me greatly (15A: Showboaty home run celebrations). "THEM'S THE BREAKS" is olde-timey in a way I actually quite like. Seems like something Daffy or Bugs would say. "OZYMANDIAS" looks great in the grid, and that poem is always timely, even if I can't reliably spell it ("... dias? ... dius?"), so exiting the upper third of the grid, I felt pretty good about the direction this whole enterprise was headed. The middle of the grid was way less ... way more ... it was just wobbly to my ear. I keep looking at ACCIDENTS HAPPEN and thinking both that it looks like a real expression and that I never hear that sentiment expressed quite that way. I feel like shit happens. Mistakes ... also happen. Or ... were made. I think my biggest problem with hearing this expression correctly is that the phrase that I've actually heard, over and over and over again, is "Accidents *will* happen." And I have heard it so often for the following reason:

I also just couldn't get a grip on the other two longer Acrosses in the middle of the grid. I had ___ TRIP and ___ TEST and in neither case was I sure what the first part was supposed to be. I think I put ROAD TEST in at first, and I know I wanted ACID TRIP at first (which I'm only just now realizing is hilarious and bizarre—wanting ACID to be the front end of one answer and having it turn out to be the front end of the other). I think I just don't use the term ACID TEST, even though I recognize it and would understand it in context (41A: Conclusive proof provider). And as for HEAD TRIP ... I think we just call them "trips" (31A: Mentally exhilarating experience). "That was a trip!""She's a trip!""Trippy!" The "head" part, while I'm quite certain it has colloquial validity, feels redundant to my ears. Like, where else is your "trip" going to happen, your leg? So, with none of the longer Acrosses really landing for me, the experience was less pleasurable in the middle section.

Things picked up again down below, though that SW corner (where I finished up) was oddly hard for me. I completely forgot the term CASING (45D: Door or window frame) and then had no idea in what context AGE would appear before a plus sign. I still don't. Is this to indicate "[some age] and up" (as in "people 50 and older")? I can hear someone saying "there were 50 plus people there," indicating "in excess of," but in that case you wouldn't write it out with a "+" so I just don't know. I'm going to ask someone on Twitter now, hang on ... people are shouting all kinds of things at me, like "jigsaw puzzle box" and "movie ratings" and "amusement park rides" and "board games," but the jigsaw / board game thing is more "ages ___ *and up*" (not "+") and the movie ratings I can think of with age are PG-13 (no "+") and I'll just have to take your word for it on amusement park rides ... this just seems an awkward clue since there's no definitive context here. Meh. And then the clue on SPOT was hard (55D: Word before check ... or a pattern), as I don't think "SPOT" is a pattern ("leopard spot," maybe ... but otherwise it's polka dot that's the pattern) and then I have never heard of JENA Malone despite her very long filmography. Bizarre that I watch as many movies as I do and have seen literally none of the dozens she's been in (she was not in the first "Hunger Games" movie, which I did see). The ZEE clue, ugh, totally got me (58D: Half of a jazz duo) (there are two "z"s in "jazz" so they're a duo, get it!?!?). Seems like it should have a "?" on it, but I'm not too mad about it. Thankfully I got ZEPPELIN without too many crosses, and then I rode the ZEPPELIN to victory (not all ZEPPELIN rides have such happy endings).

Notable mistakes I haven't yet mentioned: STOAT for SHREW (51D: Cousin of a mole); STERN and STEIN for STEEN (52D: Dutch painter Jan); ISLET for ISLES (22A: Key chain?); ETA for ETD (24D: A few minutes after your Lyft arrives, say) (had no idea what was supposed to be happening in those minutes ... I just assumed you were making a short trip). Oh, and OAFS before APES (12D: Brutes). The last thing I will say is that DISK always looks wrong to me (I think I use "disc" every time). There's something very uncircular about the letter "K." Good day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor: Victor Barocas and Brad Wilber

Relative difficulty: Medium (6:40)

THEME: QUINCUNX / PLUS SIGN (1A: Pattern of five shapes arranged like this puzzle's central black squares / 62A: One of five depicted in this puzzle) — two answers refer to the five black-square formations seen in the grid (the rest of the grid is mercifully themeless)

Word of the Day: CLAFOUTI (36D: French dessert of fruit encased in sweet batter) —

Clafoutis (French pronunciation: [klafuti]; Occitan: clafotís [klafuˈtis] or [kʎafuˈtiː]), sometimes spelled clafouti in Anglophone countries, is a baked French dessert of fruit, traditionally black cherries, arranged in a buttered dish and covered with a thick flan-like batter. The clafoutis is dusted with powdered sugar and served lukewarm, sometimes with cream.
A traditional Limousin clafoutis contains not only the flesh of the cherries used, but also the nut-like kernels in the stones. Cherry kernels contain benzaldehyde, the compound responsible for the dominant flavour in almond extract. They also contain a small amount of amygdalin, a cyanogenic glycoside - a compound potentially capable of releasing cyanide if consumed, but non-toxic in small quantities. (wikipedia)

• • •

I saw Brad Wilber's name on the byline and thought it would be on the tougher side for me, since he will inevitably throw some fancy / exotic / foreign vocabulary I've never heard of before in there because he reads more than you and me put together and he's just smart that way. And sure enough, there it was, bam, QUINCUNX (!?!?), bam, CLAFOUTI ... and yet my time was totally normal for a Saturday, so I learned a couple new words without too much aggravation, which is just fine with me. I was much more aggravated by AES and HOBS and ENE and a little bit by FES (mostly because I thought it was spelled FEZ) (58D: Morocco's next-largest city after Casablanca). But I very much liked "I DON'T LIKE TO BRAG" and "RETURN OF THE JEDI," and NAHUATL (40D: Language from which peyote comes) and XANADU (8D: Site of Coleridge's "stately pleasure-dome") and SPIT TAKE (14D: Reaction to an unexpected joke) were pretty snazzy as well (for the record, this is the only way in which I will accept "SPIT" in my puzzle). I'm very much not a fan of themes on Saturday (or Friday), as they tend to be themed enough to restrict the quality of the fill but not themed enough to really be worth it. Today's theme was kind of a shrug for me. A push. A wash. I didn't care about it. It's fine.

QUINCUNX nearly broke me up front. First of all, I wanted PENT-... something. Then I really wanted the latter part of the word to be -CRUX (because the black-square formations looked like crosses). I wasn't quite sure if the "Pattern of five shapes" was the five PLUS SIGNs or the five black squares arranged to look like a PLUS SIGN in each instance. Anyhoo, -CRUX was wrong. But knowing my Coleridge really helped because XANADU gave me not only the "X" but the "A" I needed to see UNDERSEA, and I was able to slowly piece things together from there. Found BANS very hard to get (19A: Some last a lifetime); had -ANS and still no idea, but luckily QUÉBEC fell into place and gave me that last letter I needed. Whole NE was a piece of cake. Zero problems there. Watched all of "Veep" earlier this year and still had no idea re: ANNA Chlumsky, but now that I see her face of course I know who she is. I did not realize she was the (child) star of the 1991 movie "My Girl" (opposite Macaulay Culkin) until just now. That's quite a career.

Never saw "My Girl," but I did see "RETURN OF THE JEDI"—probably several times—and yet that didn't keep me from failing to understand the clue and initially writing in RETURN OF THE KING (12D: Whence a memorable emperor's fall). I think of Darth Vader as "Lord Vader," so "emperor" weirdly threw me off. CLAFOUTI gave me trouble in the SW, but otherwise, smooth sailing. So overall, tough going around the two longer words I didn't know and couldn't hope to infer, and easy going everywhere else. Thus, Medium. Good day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor: Miriam Estrin

Relative difficulty: Medium (10:17)

THEME:"Title Basin"— book titles made wacky by changing last word in the title into a homophone of the original word:

Theme answers:

"LIFE OF PIE" (23A: Yann Martel's baking memoir?)
"TENDER IS THE KNIGHT" (30A: F. Scott Fitzgerald's chivalric tale?)
"CANDIED" (46A: Voltaire's sweet novel?)
"IN SEARCH OF LOST THYME" (63A: Marcel Proust's kitchen mystery?)
"THE LITTLE PRINTS" (90A: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's pet story?)
"JULIUS SEES HER" (112A: William Shakespeare's historical romance?)

Word of the Day: TOE PICK (44A: What a figure skate has that a hockey skate lacks) —

noun
one of the sharp teeth in the front part of a figure-skating blade. (dictionary.com)

• • •

Jane Air. Huckleberry Fin. Cannery Roe. Native Sun. I could keep going, but why? Why? Why? This is the operative question today. Unless I'm missing some very sneaky hidden element to this theme, I don't see how this very weak theme, with very few elements, passes muster on a Sunday, especially when there is almost nothing to recommend the non-theme parts of the grid. A couple answers here and there are sort of nice (ABOUT TIME, SLUGFESTS), but most of it is just filler, and a lot of filler. The grid is constructed in such a way that it's very choppy, with a surfeit of short fill—3s, 4s, and 5s as far as the eye can see. That doesn't leave much in the way of potential interest, especially when the theme is so one-note, so weak. There's absolutely nothing clever or surprising about the pi / pie pun. It's exceedingly familiar by now (from Pi(e) Day, for one). Same with (k)night. Same with thyme / time. The prints pun is a little better, and the best one of all is probably "JULIUS SEES HER," though it was also the most annoying in some ways because it broke pattern (the pun going to two words instead of just one). CANDIED should not even be here, as it's not actually a pun. it's "Can-DIDE" (pronounced "can-DEED"), accent on the second syllable, whereas CANDIED has the accent on the first. Also, CANDIED really really breaks form by not being a multiple-word title where the pun is in the last word. And by being just a paltry seven letters long (not really theme territory). There are so few answers here ... you can't sneak a 7-letter one in there and expect it to have any impact. My friend Austin had to point out to me that there were six, not five themers, because I totally forgot to count it the first time through. In short, the theme is overly simple, with almost no comedic value, and the fill is bland (ECRU ... FLAX (???))—overwhelmingly short and (consequently) with almost no zip to it.

Not much to say about this one, actually. There were no real tough spots, no posers, no hot spots, no traps. I just plodded to the end. Oh, OK, there was one sticking point / trap. I wrote in KUMAR for 6A: Titular film character opposite Harold (MAUDE). That was very clearly obviously deliberately a trap. I didn't even consider MAUDE, despite the fact that I love (and own) that movie, and don't even remember "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle" (or whatever it is they did). In that same section, though far less of a trap and far more of a personal screw-up, 17D: Goes undercover? (SLEEPS) really flummoxed me til the very last cross. I actually had BLEEPS (because if you "bleep" something ... you ... cover it up??). That was leaving me with something like BLOGFESTS at 17A: Knock-down-drag-out fights, which *almost* seemed plausible, but not quite. MUFFIN ended up being very clarifying, in the end. After I got out of that section, I had no trouble to speak of. So I will speak no more. Good day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor: Fred Piscop

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (2:47)

THEME:"... in the comics"— clues refer to visual representations of (mostly) invisible phenomena "in the comics":

Theme answers:

STORM CLOUD (16A: Anger, in the comics)
WAVY LINES (15D: Odor, in the comics)
LIGHT BULB (26D: Idea, in the comics)
SWEAT DROPS (59A: Nervousness, in the comics)

Word of the Day: Rembrandt PEALE (48D: Portrait painter Rembrandt ___) —

Rembrandt Peale (February 22, 1778 – October 3, 1860) was an American artist and museum keeper. A prolific portrait painter, he was especially acclaimed for his likenesses of presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Peale's style was influenced by French Neoclassicism after a stay in Paris in his early thirties. (wikipedia)

• • •

I love comics. I teach comics. I'm teaching a course on comics now, and I will teach another one in the spring. Thematically, this should be right up my alley. And it was, in the sense that the answers were all pretty easy to get. But there's a listlessness to the execution here. You know what would've been super cool? Well, it's likely impossible for the NYT to do this easily, but this puzzle is just screaming for visual clues. Like, work with the Charles Schulz estate and just use a series of single panels for your theme clues ... somehow.

That would be really innovative. As it is, "in the comics" just doesn't cut it. I mean, it's accurate enough, but all this puzzle does is make me wish I was reading comics. Also, it really feels like STORM CLOUDs are more commonly used to represent depression, sadness, or general sadsackery than anger.

Did you know that the unpronounceable symbols used to represent swearing in comics are called GRAWLIX? Why hasn't *that* been in a crossword puzzle!? I mean, besides its relative obscurity. It's a truly great word.

I mostly filled this one in as fast as I could read the clues / type. Hesitations for long-ass clues (e.g. 10D: In answer to request "Talk dirty to me," she sometimes says "The carpet needs vacuuming") (SIRI), slight forgetfulness (e.g. needing a bunch of crosses to remember MARACA (17D: Percussion instrument made from a gourd)), inexplicable blanking (e.g. couldn't remember EGRET??? Even after getting the "E"??? Actually considered EIDER for a half-second????) (65A: White-plumed wader), and, finally, in a single instance, absolutely positively not knowing something—namely, the portrait painter Rembrandt PEALE, who looks an awful lot like Hume Cronyn in "Shadow of a Doubt"

Anyway, Rembrandt PEALE seems pretty Saturdayish for a Monday (or any day, I guess). I know only one Rembrandt—the actually famous one. The actual Monday one. So I needed every cross there. But that's it for trouble. Hope it's a lovely autumn day where you are, and that you are able to enjoy it. Take care.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Jeff Chen

Relative difficulty: Medium (skewing slightly harder than normal?) (3:45)

THEME: BACKORDERED (38A: Like goods that are temporarily out of stock ... or a hint, alphabetically, to the answers to the starred clues) — answers to starred clues have letters that appear in reverse alphabetical order:

Theme answers:

TOOK HEED (17A: *Followed warnings)
YUPPIE (18A: *Materialistic sort, stereotypically)
SPLIFF (23A: *Marijuana cigarette, informally)
TROLLED (25A: *Posted inflammatory blog comments, e.g.)
WOOKIEE (50A: *Chewbacca, e.g.)
ROOMBA (52A: *Autonomous cleaner)
"TO LIFE!" (59A: *"L'chaim!")
SPOON-FED (62A: *Like toddlers in high chairs, often)

Word of the Day: Joe SATRIANI (65A: Guitarist Joe with 15 Grammy nominations) —

Joseph Satriani (born July 15, 1956) is an American rock musician, composer, songwriter, and guitar teacher. Early in his career, Satriani worked as a guitar instructor, with many of his former students achieving fame, such as Steve Vai, Larry LaLonde, Rick Hunolt, Kirk Hammett, Andy Timmons, Charlie Hunter, Kevin Cadogan, and Alex Skolnick; he then went on to have a successful solo music career. He is a 15-time Grammy Award nominee and has sold over 10 million albums, making him the best-selling instrumental rock guitarist of all time.
In 1988, Satriani was recruited by Mick Jagger as lead guitarist for his first solo tour.Satriani briefly toured with Deep Purple as the guitarist, joining shortly after the departure of Ritchie Blackmore in November 1993. He has worked with a range of guitarists during the G3 tour, which he founded in 1995. Satriani has been the guitarist for the supergroup Chickenfoot since joining the band in 2008. (wikipedia)

• • •

Cool, a Tuesday themeless! Trust me, this is the best way to think about this puzzle. Because if you're like me and you waste a good minute (which felt like a good half hour) trying to figure out what the theme was supposed to mean, and then you finally get it, your only response is likely to be, as mine was, "OMG WHO CARES!?" (well, it was more of an in-my-head "WHO CARES!?," as it's 5am and my wife and the cat are still asleep). Who has ever been thrilled, charmed, titillated, or amused by the fact that a word's letters are in reverse alphabetical order? Am I charmed by STU because his letters are in *alphabetical* order!? The answer is no, I'm charmed by STU because of the whole disco thing, and that alone.

I don't understand why people build puzzle themes around concepts that are both (largely) invisible and of no real inherent interest. This is a stunt puzzle, the kind you have to *explain* and then when you do explain ... again, who cares? It's all about the "feat of construction," which only the constructor himself is gonna be truly impressed by. "Feats of construction" are fine, great, impressive even, when they deliver ... interest. But here, I gotta point out the things that are impressive—that there are nine theme answers (including the revealer) and the fill still manages to be remarkably smooth for all that, that literally no other answers *besides* the answers to the starred clues have letters that appear in reverse alphabetical order, even the three-letter ones—and ... well, if a puzzle feature falls in the woods ... you get the idea. So as I say, best to consider this a Tuesday themeless. It's got some nifty fill, there are plenty of 7+-letter answers, and best of all, the short, overfamiliar fill is completely inoffensive and mostly stays out of the way. You can do RELET OPART TRU NIA USDO (!?) and even MPAA x/w AAS when there is so much longer fill to maintain solver interest.

Started slow because ugh the clue on 1A was a ****ing paragraph and it was trying to make me think about letters and it's too early in the morning for that (1A: Multi-Emmy-winning actor whose first and last names start with the same two letters). And then 1D: Exam for some smart H.S. students (AP TEST) got on my nerves because they are literally officially called AP *EXAM*s, so I figured the answer couldn't be AP anything. Then I forgot there was a LOOMPA Land. And I can never do those "Word with / after / before"-type clues very well, so SHELF shmelf (5D: Word after ice or book). But, as usual, once I made some headway, got my feet under me, I took off, and the bottom half of the grid was much much faster than the top. Overall, enjoyable enough to solve. I just wish I could've walked away from the puzzle as soon as I was done and remained blissfully unaware of the theme pointlessness. Ah well. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Dory Mintz

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (high 4s)

THEME: city puns— familiar phrases where first word is swapped out for a homophone that is also the name of a city; clues are wacky, of course:

Theme answers:

BERN BRIDGES (17A: Ways to cross a river in Switzerland?)
CANNES OPENER (28A: First showing at a film festival in France?)
DELHI COUNTER (44A: Census taker in India?)
SEOUL SEARCH (58A: Police dragnet in South Korea)

Word of the Day: BABU (1D: Hindu title of respect) —

The title babu, also spelled baboo, is used in the Indian subcontinent as a sign of respect towards men. In some cultures, the term 'Babu' is a term of endearment for a loved one as well. The honorific "ji" is sometimes added as a suffix to create the double honorific "babuji" which, in northern and eastern parts of India, is a term of respect for one's father. (wikipedia)

• • •

When I finished this, I assumed it had been written by an older person. By "older" I mean significantly older than me, and I'm 50. I also assumed "Dory" was a woman. Wrong on both counts! This theme is so slight and so stale that I'm genuinely stunned the puzzle was accepted. This feels like something straight out of the pre-Shortzian era. City puns? Some version of this theme has to have been done roughly 2000 times in the past half century. What's worse, the puns don't even result in funny or even genuinely wacky clues. They're leaden. Obvious. Plain. Boring. The only evidence I have that a bot programmed to think like a Baby Boomer who stopped solving puzzles in 1985 didn't make this puzzle was the clue on HAIM (6D: American pop-rock band composed of three sisters) and the freakishly (for this puzzle) current phrase, "I CAN'T EVEN ..." The whole frame of reference in this puzzle is largely bygone. I guess SOCHI wouldn't have been crossword-famous before 2014, but still, in fill and especially in concept, this puzzle seems like something straight out of the IMUS era (not sure exactly when that was, but most of it was not in this century, that I know).

It was also maddeningly hard ... or ... futzy, I guess ... to get through. Does PBR still have "hipster cred" (5D: Brew with hipster cred)? That clue feels like it's from the '00s. I wrote in IPA there, which felt ... not dead on, but close. So that messed things up. I don't remember GTE at all (31A: Co. that merged into Verizon); don't think I ever dealt with them in any way. So that initialism was a mystery (I had ATT I think, even though they're obviously still around and haven't merged with Verizon). I wrote in LARSON, thinking of 2015 Best Actress Oscar winner Brie LARSON, instead of actress ALISON Brie, which is weird because I watched and loved "Mad Men" and know very well who ALISON Brie is (she played Pete's wife; she was also in the sitcom "Community"). So that error is very much on me. Ugh, really wanted RAMP before RAIL (30D: Skate park feature), and that one nearly killed me (because RA- was correct, I almost didn't notice the errors in the crosses). But the area that really slowed me down the most was the SE—total train wreck, starting with SCADS for SLEWS (49A: Loads). Later, BENCH for STOOP (55A: Urban sitting spot). Later still, MEALY for WORMY (50D: Like a bad apple). Jeez, WORMY? That's really, really bad. I've never had a WORMY apple. Yikes. Also could not make any sense of PHON-, which is easily the yuckiest bit of fill in the whole grid (56D: Sound: Prefix).

Still mad that CANNES and CAEN are in the same puzzle. Two French cities? With names that are ... well, not identical in pronunciation, but PRETTY damn close? And those two answers *cross* each other? And one of them (CAEN) is hardcore crosswordese? That's a lot of "no."BABU is interesting in that it's a real term that also definitely belongs to times of yore where crossword frequency is concerned. It appeared just last year, actually, but before that, only twice since 1997 (!). Whereas from 1948-88 it appeared some twenty-one times. It baffled me, for sure. But it didn't irk me the way, say, AU LAIT on its own did. Hey, somebody do an AU LAIT / OLÉ! / OLAY theme, quick! There's gotta be a way. Yes, it's a terrible idea, but better to be a spectacular failure than the lukewarm (re)hash that is this puzzle.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. I forgot to credit FANFIC as curent-ish (4D: Some derivative stories, colloquially). My apologies.

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Constructor: Sid Sivakumar

Relative difficulty: Challenging

THEME: RUNS ON EMPTY (61A: Keeps going despite fatigue ... or a hint to three features of this puzzle)— letter string "RUN" appears three times, and each time the squares underneath it are EMPTY

Theme answers:

17A: They put in long hours to get better hours (LABOR UNIONS)
21A: What's theorized to have preceded the Big Bang ([nothing])
30A: Telephone when all lit up? (DRUNK DIAL)
36A: What polar opposites have in common ([nothing])
46A: Founder of the Sikh religion (GURU NANAK)
50A: What's uttered by a mime ([nothing])

Word of the Day: GURU NANAK (46A) —

Guru Nanak (Punjabi: ਗੁਰੂ ਨਾਨਕ (Gurmukhi); گرو نانک (Shahmukhi); Gurū Nānak; [gʊɾuː naːnəkᵊ], pronunciation; born as Nanak on 15 April 1469 – 22 September 1539), also referred to as Baba Nanak ('father Nanak'), was the founder of Sikhism and is the first of the ten Sikh Gurus. His birth is celebrated worldwide as Guru Nanak Gurpurab on Katak Pooranmashi('full-moon of the Katak'), i.e. October–November.
Nanak is said to have travelled far and wide across Asia teaching people the message of ik onkar (ੴ, 'one God'), who dwells in every one of his creations and constitutes the eternal Truth. With this concept, he would set up a unique spiritual, social, and political platform based on equality, fraternal love, goodness, and virtue.
Nanak's words are registered in the form of 974 poetic hymns, or shabda, in the holy text of Sikhism, the Guru Granth Sahib, with some of the major prayers being the Japji Sahib (jap, 'to recite'; ji and sahib are suffixes signifying respect); the Asa di Var ('ballad of hope'); and the Sidh Gohst ('discussion with the Siddhas'). It is part of Sikh religious belief that the spirit of Nanak's sanctity, divinity, and religious authority had descended upon each of the nine subsequent Gurus when the Guruship was devolved on to them. (wikipedia)

• • •

Ha ha, yeah, not a puzzle I should've been doing at 4:30am, straight out of bed, probably. All the non-theme parts were easy, but literally everything between the first EMPTY and the last EMPTY (so, everything in the center and center-west) was a mess. Spent tons of time just flat-out stuck, which virtually never happens. I'd even jumped ahead to the revealer clue to see if I could get some help and, well, not really. Even with the RUNS part in place, I couldn't figure out the rest of the phrase (RUNS ON AND ON came to me before RUNS ON EMPTY); and then, even after I completely understood the theme ... still stuck. Three major contributing factors to this. One, I needed literally every cross for GURU NANAK. Most of those letters could have been anything from my perspective (although I was able to put together the "RUN" part from knowing the theme). Two, ATONE, wow (39A: When some people break for lunch). I have to say that cluing a perfectly good English word as a phrase is a generally awful choice, and here it was really irksome because it came right in the heart of theme-impacted country, and so after I put in what seemed like the obvious ONEPM, I had no way of getting rid of that wrong answer with any certainty (not for a while, anyway). Which brings me to three: I just completely forgot the word DUVETS (24A: Down-hearted softies?). The "?" clue didn't help, but there was honestly one point at which I was staring at DUVE- and thinking, "well, no words start that way so I must have an error." Oof. Throw in, in that same center section, a non-S-ending plural in DATA (35D: Figures, e.g.) and a really hard clue on theme-affected TROJAN (25D: Misleading malware), and it meant total catastrophe for me, solving-speed-wise.

The west was also rough, as I forgot there were ever WHIGs in the U.S., and because of that could not come up with the very basic WANTED (34A: Word seen above a mug shot). And before I got HYPE (which took time) (38A: It may lead up to a letdown), I had no real hope of seeing BAYOU (28D: Place to catch shrimp)—that clue was not quite geographically specific enough for me (in that it was not geographically specific at all). So, tale of two puzzles today, as far as difficulty goes—that left/center chunk (yikes), and then everything else (fine). The only issues I had outside the Danger Zone was in the JUG / UTAH area. Hard clue on UTAH, no chance there (58D: Its name is said to mean "people of the mountains"), and I wrote in "ALL ears" before "JUG ears" (?) (57A: ___ ears). I know jugs have ears, but I don't know about the phrase "JUG ears" as a stand-alone thing. I've heard "JUG-eared" to describe someone with ears that stick out, but just "JUG ears," I dunno.

Really liked the clue on DRUNK DIAL (30A: Telephone when all lit up?). Really didn't like the clue on KILO, which lacked any indication that the answer was an abbr. (48D: Approximate weight of a liter of water). Always feels like cheating on the cluer's part when abbrs. are not signaled some way in the clue. OK, that's all, bye.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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