Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle (2024)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: STIMMING(3D: Repetition of self-calming movements, such as finger-tapping or hair-twirling) —

Self-stimulatory behavior, also known as"stimming"andself-stimulation,is the repetition of physical movements, sounds, words, moving objects, or other behaviors. Such behaviors (also scientifically known as "stereotypies") are found to some degree in all people, especially those withdevelopmental disabilitiessuch asADHD, as well asautisticpeople.People diagnosed withsensory processing disorderare also known to potentially exhibit stimming behaviors.

Stimming has been interpreted as a protective response to overstimulation, in which people calm themselves by blocking less predictable environmental stimuli, to which they have a heightened sensitivity.A further explanation views stimming as a way to relieveanxietyand other negative or heightened emotions. (wikipedia)

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[56A: Bends down]

Just couldn't find the handle on this one. I mean, I got through it, but I just wasn't on its wavelength. Ever. Well, almost never. One of the biggest problems for me was the cluing, specifically the cluing of spoken phrases. Over and over, those clues just clanked for me. The equivalency just didn't seem to be there, exactly, or else things were so vague I just had trouble getting to the right answer, as with the very first answer I tried to get, which was "I'LL BET" and "OH, SURE" before it was "I'M SURE." But that one was just normal-level frustrating. Others made me make unhappy faces. Like ["I'll count us in"] for "ON THREE." Count to what? Into what? And then there was ["Yes, I would love that!"] for "PLEASE DO"? I mean, yes, in certain imagined contexts, I can see that, but there are way too many other imagined contexts where "Yes, I would love that!" and "PLEASE DO" are not equivalents at all. "Let's go out dancing tonight!" for instance. In that case, "Yes, I would love that!" would be a welcome response, whereas "PLEASE DO" would be a terse and kinda mean way of saying "have fun by yourself!" The worst of these spoken-phrase misequivalencies came with "AT MY AGE..." (35D: "When you get to be this old..."). This old? What old? What is "this"? Are you pointing at something or someone? I thought the speaker was telling a child how old they had to be before they could, I dunno, vote or ride a ride at the fair or get a tattoo or something. The referent for "this" was in no way clear. You can lawyer up a defense for these clues, sure, but clank clank clank they went, and only after I got them from crosses could I kinda sorta reconstruct the scenario I was supposed to have imagined in the first place.

The fill seemed solid and even original at times today, but it wasn't terribly exciting to me. SWIFTIES is apparently a debut, but we've been getting lots and lots of Swift content of late, so it didn't feel new. No idea about the "CHA CHA" part of CHA CHA SLIDE (19D: Wedding staple with the line "Take it back now, y'all"). The only slide I've ever heard of is the Electric Slide. But then I haven't been to a wedding for over a decade, and before that, I think the last wedding I went to was my own (2003). This is what much of this puzzle was like for me—the answers seem fine, they just missed me on some fundamental level. STIMMING is original, but didn't come easily, as it's a term of recent coinage (i.e. I didn't grow up with it—first known use = 1983, but popularized only much more recently), and it's strongly associated with autism and other forms of neurodivergence (context that the clue could've used, I think). SOLAR NEBULA seems great, but I also don't really know what that is and just inferred words I'd heard before after getting a few crosses (34A: Gaseous cloud in which suns and planets form). Took a while to get INTRACTABLY, in part because I was expecting a multiword phrase (usually works the other way around—you expect the answer to be one solid word but it comes in pieces), and in part because I cannot spell and so ended up (for a bit) with INTRACTIBLY! Correcting that answer led to the nicest, whooshiest, happiest moment of the solve: uncovering TWICE AS NICE, which has a pleasing lilting rhyming quality to it (14D: Doubly better). Wish there'd been more of those moments for me. I hope there were for you.

Spanish trouble today, in that I had ESTA- and no idea what the last letter was going to be (I know enough crossword Spanish to know that ESTAN ESTAR and ESTAS are all things, but not enough actual Spanish to know what the hell I am talking about). Again, a normal sort of crossword frustration, but then that frustration got rekindled when the puzzle decided it also wanted to throw ERES at me. I got ERES much more easily, but now I kinda resented the puzzle on laziness grounds. Doubling the clue (["You are," en español]), doesn't make your overreliance on Spanish forms of the verb "to be" any more enjoyable. WAITERS bring a lot to tables, plural, over the course of a shift, maybe, but if I just order drinks, or an appetizer, then the waiter does not, in fact, bring a lot to the table (47A: They bring a lot to the table). They bring a little to the table. I see that you are trying to make a cute little misdirection here, trying to get us to think metaphorically while you go literally, but once again, the vagueness, the -ish-iness, the failure to stick the landing on some of these clues was kind of deflating.

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THEME: BOX BRAIDS (32A: Hairstyle worn by Janet Jackson in the 1993 film "Poetic Justice," with a hint to entering four pairs of answers in this puzzle)— four pairs of Down answers (made up of "box"es, obviously) are "braided"—that is, they appear side-by-side and intertwine (see shaded squares intertwined with white squares, above). You have to enter those Downs in braided fashion, though the unbraided (straight Down) answers also make coherent (and unclued) words and phrases:

Braided answers:

• DEGREES / FORBIDS(2D: Academic achievements / 3D: Doesn't allow) (unbraided = DOG BEDS + FERRIES)
• FOR RENT / TEEMING(9D: Available, as an apartment / 10D: Brimming (with)) (unbraided = FERMENT + TOE RING)
• FORGONE / TIN CANS(35D: Chosen to do without / 36D: Ends of a homemade walkie-talkie) (unbraided = FIR CONE + TONGANS)
• FLEECES / BRUSH ON(38D: Swindles / 39D: Add evenly, as a marinade) (unbraided = FRESCOES + BLUE HEN)

Word of the Day: "exploitation"(40D: Platform whose exploitation is called "jailbreaking," for short) —

Anexploit(from the English verbto exploit, meaning "to use something to one’s own advantage") is a piece ofsoftware, a chunk ofdata, or a sequence of commands that takes advantage of abugorvulnerabilityto cause unintended or unanticipated behavior to occur oncomputer software, hardware, or something electronic (usually computerized).Such behavior frequently includes gaining control of a computer system, allowingprivilege escalation, or adenial-of-service (DoS or related DDoS) attack. In lay terms, some exploit is akin to a 'hack'. (wikipedia) //iOS jailbreakingis the use of aprivilege escalationexploitto remove software restrictions imposed byAppleon devices runningiOSand iOS-basedoperating systems. It is typically done through a series ofkernelpatches. A jailbroken device typically permitsroot accesswithin the operating system and provides the right to install software unavailable through theApp Store. Different devices and versions are exploited with a variety of tools.Appleviews jailbreaking as a violation of theend-user license agreementand strongly cautions device owners not to try to achieve root access through the exploitation ofvulnerabilities.// While sometimes compared torootinganAndroid device, jailbreaking bypasses several types of Apple prohibitions for the end-user. Since it includes modifying the operating system (enforced by a "lockedbootloader"), installing non-officially approved (not available on the App Store) applications viasideloading, and granting the user elevated administration-level privileges (rooting), the concepts of iOS jailbreaking are therefore technically different fromAndroiddevice rooting.

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See, you think I'm not gonna notice that you duped TOE because TOE RING is an unclued answer (10D), but no such luck. I see you trying to sneak a second TOE in there. Boo to TOE two! Also, a TOE SHOE is a ballet slipper, not those creepy running shoes with individual compartments for each of your toes, wtf (those are actually a variety of "barefoot running shoe") (11A: Quirky bit of running footwear). Just type [define toe shoe] into any search engine, you'll see. Ballet. The less we acknowledge the existence of those novelty foot-glove thingies, the better. Now that we've got that out of the way—this was a weird solve for me. Got the basic gimmick pretty quickly ...

The rest of the puzzle is fine. And even though parts were ridiculously easy, there were a few things that stalled me pretty badly. The worst was SLATS (18A: What a king might sit on?). Yeesh, tough. And right at a crucial (and narrow) connection point between different sections of the grid. Had the "S" but then ??? Dead stop. Had to go all the way around and come at the center from underneath, all because of that clue on SLATS. Also, the clue on DIMES, double yeesh! (30A: Tiniest change). Both SLATS and DIMES were plurals I did not see coming, and that "change" misdirect on DIMES, dear lord. I stared at DIM- for a bit then thought "how is DIMES metaphorical for a tiny change?" D'oh! Not metaphorical! Literally, the smallest (U.S.) coin. I had no idea what an "exploitation" was (see Word of the Day above) and I have never known the name of any of the roughly 2,000 Bachelors or Bachelorettes and you can't make me, nope, not now, not ever. But still neither IOS nor MATT held me up too much because crosses were fair, although you can see (by the placement of the cursor in the finished grid screenshot, above) that the SLATS / MATT square was the very last thing I got. Things looked dicey there for a bit, but "T" was the only thing that made a man's name (sorry to all the dudes named MART out there) and SLATS ended up (finally) making sense. The "king" is a mattress! I was thinking checkers, chess, crabs, god knows what else...

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THEME:DOUBLE MISNOMER (34A: What 18-, 23-, 49- and 56-Across could be called)— familiar things with two-part names where both parts are "misnomers":

Theme answers:

• EGG CREAMS (18A: Carbonated fountain drinks that contain neither ...)
• SWEETBREADS (23A: Unusual meat courses that are neither ...)
• ENGLISH HORN (49A: Woodwind instrument that is neither ...)
• GRAPE NUTS (56A: Breakfast cereal that contains neither ...)

Word of the Day: ENGLISH HORN(49A) —

Thecor anglais(UK:/ˌkɔːrˈɒŋɡleɪ/,US:/-ɑːŋˈɡleɪ/or originalFrench:[kɔʁɑ̃ɡlɛ];plural:cors anglais), orEnglish horn(inNorth American English), is adouble-reedwoodwind instrumentin theoboefamily. It is approximately one and a half times the length of an oboe, making it essentially analto oboein F.

The cor anglais is atransposing instrumentpitched inF, aperfect fifthlower than theoboe(a C instrument).This means that music for the cor anglais is written aperfect fifthhigher than the instrument sounds. The fingering and playing technique used for the cor anglais are essentially the same as those of the oboe, and oboists typically double on the cor anglais when required. The cor anglais normally lacks the lowest B♭key found on most oboes, and so its sounding range stretches from E₃(written B♮) belowmiddle Cto C₆two octaves above middle C. Some versions being made today have a Low B♭Key to Extend the Range down one more note to sounding E♭₃(wikipedia)

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I don't mind the concept here at all, but the execution (specifically the cluing) made things initially awkward. The first theme clue I encountered was23A: Unusual meat courses that are neither ...and, well, first of all, I have no idea what "unusual meat courses" could possibly mean. "Unusual"? How? For whom? "Unusual meat courses" feels like a phrase that was never used by anyone ever in the history of the world until this very second (seriously, google it in quotation marks and see what you get (I'll tell you: you get this clue—crossword sites as far as the eye can see)). I thought some kind of strange wordplay was AFOOT. So even grasping what the clue was saying on a literal level was strange. But the real problem with the theme cluing is the ellipsis at the end of each clue. That ellipsis implies that my answer should continue and complete the clue phrase, which means that if I'm following the clue's logic, the answer should be SWEET NOR BREADS. "Contains neither ... SWEET NOR BREADS." My brain was not happy with the missing "NOR." Even after I got SWEETBREADS(mmm, lamb pancreas...), I was like "uh, neither SWEETBREADS nor What!?" Not sure how I feel about a completely made-up term being the revealer. I think I'm neutral. Don't love. Don't mind, terribly. My other issue with the execution today, besides the ellipsis / missing NOR thing, is a technical one, specifically the grid construction. It feels like a first-draft grid, where you've got the themers in place but the grid itself is all imbalanced: wide open corners but superchoppy middle. The word count is bizarrely low for a puzzle with a dense theme (72, when you can go to 78 and most themed weekday puzzles run 74-78). Lots of long Downs (well, four of them) run through *three* themers—when you have to run a Down answer through that many themers, your choices get extremely limited, and while BASE TEN, MISGAUGE, INGRATES, DOWNERS are all fine answers, locking them in (which you'd have to do early in the construction) created an inflexibility that is felt throughout the grid in lots of other less-than-great fill. I'm wondering if a black square in each of the corners might not have smoothed things out and helped avoid, say, DONEE ALENE ESS and adjectival INERTIAL, or ERNO ABOO UTE GOREN EIRE EPEE NENE(that's just one corner!), or plural MANNS, or whatever a CLAY PIPE is (that's a "My WordList Said It Was A Thing!" word if ever I saw one). So, in short, concept fine, execution clunky, in multiple ways.

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THEME: BABYPROOF (63A: Make safer, in a way ... or what the starts of 17-, 27-, 38- and 52-Across might be?)— phrases that begin with things associated with a baby:

Theme answers:

• CRIB NOTES (17A: Cheat sheets)
• BOTTLE GOURD (27A: Fruit also known as calabash)
• CARRIAGE HOUSE (38A: Outbuilding for many a historic home)
• MOBILE PHONE (52A: Counterpart to a landline)

Word of the Day: BOTTLE GOURD(27A) —

Calabash(/ˈkæləbæʃ/;Lagenaria siceraria), also known asbottle gourd,white-flowered gourd,long melon,birdhouse gourd,New Guinea bean,New Guinea butter bean,Tasmania bean,andopo squash, is avinegrown for its fruit. It can be either harvested young to be consumed as avegetable, or harvested mature to be dried and used as a utensil,container, or amusical instrument. When it is fresh, the fruit has a light green smooth skin and white flesh.

Calabash fruits have a variety of shapes: they can be huge and rounded, small and bottle-shaped, or slim and serpentine, and they can grow to be over a metre long. Rounder varieties are typically calledcalabash gourds. The gourd was one of the world's first cultivated plants grown not primarily for food, but for use as containers. The bottle gourd may have been carried from Asia to Africa, Europe, and the Americas in the course ofhuman migration,or by seeds floating across the oceans inside the gourd. It has been proven to have been globally domesticated (and existed in theNew World) during thePre-Columbian era.

There is sometimes confusion when discussing "calabash" because the name is shared with the unrelated calabash tree (Crescentia cujete), whose hard, hollow fruits are also used to make utensils, containers, and musical instruments. (wikipedia)

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This was sluggish for me. Maybe it's because I know the term as CRIB SHEET, so when I got CRIB I was ... out of ideas Maybe it's because [Sneak previews] are not really the same asPROMOS. A "sneak preview" is "a special showing of something (such as a movie, play, or product) before it becomes available to the general public." And while I guess you could say that a "sneak preview" is, in fact, promotional, the term "PROMOS" usually refers to something much shorter than a full performance: a short film, video, movie trailer, etc. Maybe the trouble was that I am 54 and still can't spell LADLES ("lAdElS?"). Or that I've never heard anyone actually say NOBS for "heads" (18D: Noggins) (I'd've gone with NABS or even NIBS before NOBS there). Or that I don't know what a BOTTLE GOURD is, really, and only half-know the term CARRIAGE HOUSE. Or that MOBILE PHONE is much less used where I come from (i.e. planet Earth) than "cellphone." Or that I couldn't quite parse "OH NEAT!" for a few beats, or couldn't remember that SERVO was a thing (37D: Kind of motor used in robotics). Or maybe I'm just adjusting to this new hot weather. Whatever it was, it was something. I don't really get the revealer. Do the crib and bottle and carriage and mobile prove ... that there's a baby in the house somewhere. Nice deduction, Sherlock. Why are we looking for the baby? Shouldn't we know where the baby is? Are we detectives? kidnappers? The whole "proof" angle needed to be more tightly wed to the theme concept for it to really work. This is just a remedial "first words associated with"-type puzzle pretending it's something more.

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THEME: "YOU AND WHAT ARMY?" (49A: Unfazed response to a threat from 20-, 31- or 38-Across?) — non-military figures with military titles:

Theme answers:

• SERGEANT PEPPER (20A: Beatles album character whoapparentlyis an infantry leader)
• CAPTAIN OBVIOUS (31A: Hotels.com mascot whomustbe a commanding officer)
• COLONEL SANDERS (38A: Fast-food icon whosurelyheads a brigade)

Word of the Day: COLONEL SANDERS(38A) —

[no emails, please]

ColonelHarland David Sanders(September 9, 1890– December 16, 1980) was an American businessman and founder of fast food chicken restaurant chainKentucky Fried Chicken(also known as KFC). He later acted as the company'sbrand ambassadorand symbol. His name and image are still symbols of the company.

Sanders held a number of jobs in his early life, such assteam engine stoker, insurance salesman, andfilling stationoperator. He began sellingfried chickenfromhis roadside restaurantinNorth Corbin, Kentucky, during theGreat Depression. During that time, Sanders developed his "secret recipe" and his patented method of cooking chicken in apressure fryer. Sanders recognized the potential of the restaurantfranchisingconcept, and the first KFC franchise opened inSouth Salt Lake, Utah, in 1952. When his original restaurant closed, he devoted himself full-time to franchising his fried chicken throughout the country.

The company's rapid expansion across the United States and overseas became overwhelming for Sanders. In 1964, then 73 years old, he sold the company to a group of investors led byJohn Y. Brown Jr.andJack C. Masseyfor $2 million ($19.6 million today). However, he retained control of operations in Canada, and he became a salaried brand ambassador for Kentucky Fried Chicken. In his later years, he became highly critical of the food served by KFC restaurants, believing they had cut costs and allowed quality to deteriorate. [...]

Sanders was commissioned as aKentucky Colonelin 1935 by Kentucky governorRuby Laffoon. //Kentucky Colonelis the highesttitle of honorbestowed by theCommonwealth of Kentucky, and is the best-known of a number of honorarycolonelciesconferred by United States governors.A Kentucky Colonel Commission (the certificate) is awarded in the name of the Commonwealth by thegovernor of Kentuckyto individuals with "Honorable" titular style recognition preceding the names of civilians aged 18 or over, for noteworthy accomplishments, contributions to civil society, remarkable deeds, or outstanding service to the community, state, or a nation.The Governor bestows the honorable title with a colonelcycommission, by issuance ofletters patent. (wikipedia)

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A few quibbles with this theme, which I otherwise loved, mostly for being completely bizarre. Firstly, the "Sgt." in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is not written out. It's definitively "Sgt." and only "Sgt." This is what I'd call "The Reverse DR. WHO Problem" (in that the "doctor" in DOCTOR WHO is always written out fully but crosswords seem to think it's OK to stylize it as DRWHO). Having SERGEANT written out fully here feels like some kind of violation. Further, it seems that "Sgt. Pepper" really was a military leader—that is, the dude in the photo used to represent him on the album was a real military leader, though James Melvin Babington seems to have been a Major General rather than a Sergeant. SERGEANT PEPPER does, technically, remain mythical. But other than that, I thought this theme was delightful. When I'd finished, the connection between revealer felt pretty tenuous, and ever after reading the clues, it still seems highly contrived, but its nutso hypothetical context is what makes it hilarious. The idea of any of these guys "threatening" you (or me, or anyone) is bizarre, but somehow, once you imagine it, the non-military impotence of these dudes with military monikers becomes absurd. Funny. CAPTAIN OBVIOUS is a great answer all on its own—I was actually happier (solving Downs-only) thinking it was just the general term one might hurl at someone saying something everyone already knows, but if you need it to be the hotels.com guy, sure, whatever. The whole concept here feels bonkers, which is to say it feels genuinely risky, which is part of why I approve. Fake military dudes with phony credentials issuing idle and possibly drunk threats with no real possibility of violence in sight—this is my idea of a good Monday time.

As a Downs-only solve, this one was a breeze, and there were a couple of genuinely lovely and/or surprising Downs along the way, specifically B-PLOT (rare that you get a 5-letter answer that feels fresh) (and yes, it's a debut) (25D: Secondary story, in TV lingo) and ISLAND HOP (also a debut) (33D: Travel from Kauai to Maui to Oahu, say). My only hesitations when solving came at the tail ends of answers. For some reason, I pulled up short after GRAPE at 8D: Purple pop (GRAPE SODA) because I was picturing an ice pop / Otter Pop / popsicle-type pop and not the more obvious soda pop. Guessed right on the KEBAB spelling, which is always nice (though having SERGEANT PEPPER in place meant that one of the vowels was already sorted). I wasn't sure if the CHOY in "bok CHOY" was a CHOY or a CHOI, so I left it blank and thankfully S-ST clearly called for a "Y" and not an "I" (41A: The "S" of GPS: Abbr.). I thought the [Arizona city or county] might be MESA (?) so I left it blank at first pass. And then with VIDEO, for some reason the first thing in my head was VIDEO DISC (??) instead of the (again) more obvious answer, VIDEO TAPE (34D: Medium for old home movies). Oh, and I had GRABS before GRIPS ( 46D: Holds tightly on to). Otherwise, whoosh, no resistance, no trouble, definitely among the easier Downs-only experiences I've ever had.

What's the difference between MAYAS (59A: Yucatán people of old) and MAYANS? Is there one? MAYAS somehow looks weird to me. Like, I'd have called the people in question MAYANS or simply MAYA before calling them MAYAS, but what the hell do I know about ye olde Yucatán plurals? Seeing Mike MYERS in the grid made me laugh, as I was just recently telling someone my only good celebrity sighting story, which involved going to the Beverly Hills eatery Kate Mantilini after a performance of my sister's then-boyfriend's play, and in this seemingly ordinary-looking, maybe slightly fancy diner, which wasn't very crowded, there was Mike MYERS, in a Toronto Maple Leafs jacket, sitting at a booth with two other people, and there was someone I believe was the composer Marvin Hamlish (don't ask me how I knew what he looked like) and then later in the evening I noticed a couple leaving (or maybe they were coming in, I forget), and while the man was in the entryway, waiting for his date to come back from the bathroom, he started doing a little dance to the music that was on the radio, and that music was "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?" by Culture Club, and that man was Jon Cryer. Of course, this all now feels like a fever dream, so if I have misidentified any of the people in question, I apologize, it was 1994, no one really knows What was happening in 1994. In fact, 1994 might actually have been 1993. Years were wobblier then.

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