Should have been 34D.

I'm reading Rex Parker's write-up of today's NYT crossword: 

35D: Annual breast cancer awareness observance (NO BRA DAY) — I did not know this was a thing, or still a thing. Seems like an impractical option for many women. According to wikipedia, "The day is controversial as some see it as sexualizing and exploiting women's bodies while at the same time belittling a serious disease." I misread the clue as [Annual breast cancer awareness month] and, having the "NO-," wrote in NOVEMBER (which fits ... it's wrong, but it fits). Breast Cancer Awareness Month is actually right now, October, and NO BRA DAY is next week (October 13).

I'd never heard of "No Bra Day" — I don't think — until I did today's NYT crossword. A search of the NYT archive shows it's only ever been used in the crossword. This annual "observance" — ahem — has never been spoken of in an actual article or column. It's not like Breast Cancer Awareness Month, which is talked up all the time.

I'd say it’s ridiculous to have a day where women are urged to invite people to focus on their undefended — unshielded, unsupported — breasts. Making breasts more gawkable does not create awareness of cancer. It creates awareness of breasts, especially healthy, good-looking breasts. But we don't want a special event for that, because it seems to legitimate staring. If the idea is to increase awareness of the comfort of not wearing a bra, it fails. The best bralessness happens when you believe no one notices, whether your belief is true or false.

Anyway, too bad the NYT made the clue 35D and not 34D or 36D. 35D almost sounds like a bra size.

"I love this style of clue, where even if you don't know the exact trivia (I've never heard of the band or the song) you can puzzle it out based on the context."

Writes Malika, at Rex Parker Does the NY Times Crossword Puzzle.

Here's the clue: "Girl in Jefferson Airplane's 'White Rabbit.'"

One day everything new will be old, and one day everything will be forgotten. 

"At least Hanlon's razor... has something witty and memorable and real-life-applicable about it..."

Writes Rex Parker about today's NYT crossword, where the 18-across clue is "'Never attribute to ___ that which is adequately explained by stupidity' (Hanlon's razor)."

The answer to on that clue is... spoiler alert...

A vogue word, rejected.

You don't need to care about the NYT crossword to be interested in what follows — it discusses a current buzzword — but it does reveal a couple answers. 

From Rex Parker's write-up of today's puzzle:

"... cluing voice..."

"I hear that there's some scheme afoot in the NYT Games newsletter to offer themeless puzzles up with clues that have been completely rewritten by in-house staff (gutting the original constructor's cluing voice completely, without their consent). Editors change clues all the time, of course, but that's ... editing. Not wholesale rewriting. Maybe I have misunderstood, and the plan is less heavy-handed and constructor-unfriendly."

Writes Rex Parker, in today's blog post about the NYT crossword. (Answers for today's puzzle revealed at the link.) 

I'd always assumed all the clues were edited into the style of the NYT, so it's interesting to me to see that the constructors — the original constructors — are thought of as having a "cluing voice" — something that is valued and can be threatened. There is a lot of room to be dull or clever or cute or weird in the clues, so, as a daily solver of the puzzle, I get what it means to say "cluing voice." And of course, I know how much "voice" means to a writer and how aggravating it is to suffer the intrusions of an editor who's bent on imposing a uniform institutional voice. That's why I write a blog and not law review articles.

I do the NYT crossword every day, and often it contains humor, but I had never, not once, until yesterday, laughed out loud.

It was just a small outburst. A "ha." But it was huge, because I've gotten so many clues over the years that went for humor and not one thing had burst through my steely exterior until yesterday. 

I don't want to spoil the puzzle for you, and frankly, I don't want to have to explain the theme, which is a tad complicated. I'll just say: 88 Across. Finally, a crossword answer that made me laugh. 

Do the puzzle yourself, or read Rex Parker's write up, here. 

A little music to puzzle over:

"That... section was tough not just because I didn't know WTF [that one word] was, but because it gets really tight in there..."

"... and there are only a few clues to help you out with [that word], and those are either cross-referenced or vague."

Writes Rex Parker, about today's NYT crossword, about what was the last word I got. Maybe you haven't done the puzzle yet, so I'm putting a page break before the spoilers, but what follows is of interest even if you don't do the puzzle:

"Before I get to the meat of the puzzle, a word about the title. Well, three words: I hate it. Like, viscerally."

"It's a vicious, stupid, and ultimately inapt title," writes Rex Parker, about the NYT Sunday Crossword, which is titled "Step on it."

Click to spoil the theme of today's puzzle.

"Is OREO in today’s #NYTXW?"

That's a Twitter account: Is OREO in today’s #NYTXW?

But: spoiler alert if you have done today's puzzle (and you care).

I got there from Rex Parker's write-up of today's puzzle.

Space diapers.

On the off chance that you care about the NYT crossword but have not yet completed today's puzzle, I will protect you by putting this discussion after the jump.

"The single worst part of this was where the totally unfathomable 'word' from a non-famous Queen song title was sitting right next to a 'high-earning Tik-Tok personality' (there's not one word of that phrase that isn't glistening with inanity)..."

"... and then both of those ran straight through The Crucial Word in the damn 'poem' (i.e. HAIKU). The very worst fill at the most important point in the puzzle—again, winning. I resent this kind of self-indulgent, no-concern-for-solving-pleasure, make-your-theme-work-at-all-costs construction. I would've been somewhat quicker getting through this section if I could've remembered SERRANO sooner (31A: Pepper between jalapeño and cayenne on the Scoville heat scale), but the real added difficulty whammy came from *two* wrong answers that seemed to fit their clues perfectly: ICE for 28D: Finalize, as a deal (INK) and (worse) SHYER for 38A: Less forward (COYER)." 

Rex Parker is so right about what's wrong with today's NYT crossword. That was exactly my experience, down to the "ice" and the "shyer." 

I have a long streak of finishing all the NYT crosswords, and I thought today was the day I'd have to break it. I made it in the end, though. Damned Thursdays. My favorites are Fridays. So, move on...

I liked it.

But Rex Parker was grumpy about the little joke in today's NYT crossword (spoiler alert):

And the sense of "humor" on this one ... I guess I'm thinking specifically of the ATTIRE clue, which ... I just don't get (11D: Difference between a well-dressed bicyclist and a poorly dressed unicyclist, in a joke). I mean, a tire, ATTIRE? Is that it? They sound alike, so it's funny? Yeesh.

I've always — since I was a kid — liked homophone jokes like "When is a door not a door?" They're so simple. They're right there. Undeniable jokes. And yet, Rex denies this one, questions whether it constitutes a real joke. Okaaay.

I loved today's NYT crossword — thought it was especially enjoyable... full of challenging, interesting words...

... but my favorite NYT crossword blogger, Rex Parker, hated it:

Before I was half done, I had exclaimed "what?" or else audibly groaned something like half a dozen times. This thing was stale the second I bit into it (i.e. at TIETACK), and though parts of it are decent, the overall taste was unpleasant, for sure. Fitting that it has ARCHAISM in it, because it felt old and ... old. In a bad way. In the way where ... like in the olden days, when you just had to know random biological trivia or you were ****ed. BRISTLECONE PINE? SHAGBARK? News to me and *real* news to me, respectively. Take your botanical fetish back to the Maleskan era, thank you kindly....

Wait! My favorite thing was bristlecone pine. The clue was: "Tree that's among the oldest known life forms on earth (4,800+ years)." How can that be a mere "fetish"? There's a kind of tree on earth that was alive in 2700 B.C. — the end of the Early Dynastic Period in Egypt, the time of the mythical Yellow Emperor in China and the construction of the Caral metropolis in Peru...

No trace of warfare has been found at Caral: no battlements, no weapons, no mutilated bodies. Shady's findings suggest it was a gentle society, built on commerce and pleasure. In one of the temples, they uncovered 32 flutes made of condor and pelican bones and 37 cornetts of deer and llama bones. One find revealed the remains of a baby, wrapped and buried with a necklace made of stone beads....

I knew bristlecone pine because I had just read the January 20th New Yorker article "The Past and the Future of the Earth’s Oldest Trees/Bristlecone pines have survived various catastrophes over the millennia, and they may survive humanity" by Alex Ross. A great read!

"This better not be an April Fools puzzle. That's all I have to say."

Says Rex Parker — of "Rex Parker Does the NY Times Crossword Puzzle" — as he introduces the video version of himself doing today's puzzle, which does indeed — spoiler alert! — turn out to be an April Fools puzzle. So we witness his experience of the foolery — which he's in no mood for — in real time.



I like the way he's so ired at "ires"... at "ires" and a lot of other things. I always do the NYT puzzle, and I usually read his write-ups. It was fun to have the real-time experience on video. His critique of the "fill" is instantaneous and corresponds exactly to his writing. He's genuinely outraged, and it's enjoyable to go along with him in his outrage over this very lightweight problem. He knows it's not the worst problem we've got right now. The puzzle and his encounter with it are welcome distractions.

"Catty corner"? "It's 'kitty-corner' and it will never not be 'kitty-corner' #TeamKitty."

Says Rex Parker, railing about today's NYT crossword. I wasn't so sure. Why does the diagonal path across an intersection have anything to do with felines? Is it like "as the crow flies"? Cats don't use the crosswalks? But what makes the corner catty? I mean, if the right term is "catty corner," it seems to say that the corner diagonally across from another corner is somehow cat-like. But if it's "kitty corner," it seems to mean that it's the corner where a kitty is located.

But consider the possibility that this term was never about cats or kitties. It was about the French word "quatre," which means 4, and "quatre" was also sometimes spelled "catre" — in French — and it became "cater" in English.

"LOL white men putting [SPOILER DELETED] in the grid (10D: Sharing of a moral viewpoint to gain social approval)."

Rex Parker rails against today's NYT crossword, which features a 15-letter expression that I'll hide until the jump:

This puzzle is so on-brand. I mean, this is exactly the kind of term I'd expect to find in a puzzle that just this week was reminding us all of the glory of Confederate monuments. That's a term used predominantly by those who are real mad that they can't be as openly racist and homophobic as they used to be in the good ol' days. People who use that term also use terms like "P.C." and "SJW" [and the word that's in the puzzle at 41D]. Super-popular term with right-wing "thought" "leaders." Aggrieved white men love the term. And it's rich coming from an editor who has struggled to keep racism / sexism / classism out of his puzzles. I say "struggled," but that implies he cares or is trying, so maybe not. Anyway, you can dodge criticism of your terrible behavior by calling the criticism [SPOILER DELETED], but your behavior won't be any less terrible. I'm not [a variation on the spoiler] for pointing this out. Just a sentient person with a capacity for empathy. It's fun! Costs nothing! Try it out!

NYT crossword spoiler alert... "This??? This is your Queen Victoria's 200th birthday tribute puzzle? Just ... her name?"

"Look, do a damn tribute or don't do a tribute, but this half-assed half-themed junk has got to go. I kept looking around for Victorian material. Kept thinking there was some theme building that I just couldn't see.... 'Grandmother of Europe,' ugh, why are we 'honoring' her? Was the idea ... what was the idea? Just put her name in the middle and then build a very old-fashioned, very old, kinda mediocre themeless around her? LINDY in a LANDAU, that's what this thing was. For the NONCE. It's painfully hoary, and could not have been more off my wavelength if it tried.... Who the hell is Manchester, the WRITER (24D: London or Manchester). That clue killed me, and kept me from accessing the NE in a way that had me wondering if I was even going to finish. Satan is The DEUCE!?!? LOL, when? Who? Woof."

Rex Parker rages against the Queen Victoria 200th birthday puzzle.

How should the 200th birthday of Queen Victoria be commemorated? I check Google...



What do you think — her nude side or weird facts?

Here's the image at The Guardian:



It's a painting Victoria gave her husband on his 33rd birthday. But it's her 200th birthday. Isn't there something better than musing about whether "Victorian" should mean "prudish" if she wasn't all that prudish or was she?

"Also, this plays like an OLDEN white man's puzzle, real bad. The guy who believes he's a CENTRIST but is really a conservative."

"The guy who believes that as a conservative he favors BALANCED BUDGETS when in fact self-styled conservatives just want massive tax cuts and don't care whether they're paid for or not. The guy who works for some 'business' with a PROCEDURE MANUAL. He's probably got his photo on the OUR TEAM page, smiling his smarmy gruesome boss-pleasing smile. Probably gonna SNEER at the millennials in his office and then drown his sadness in ITALIAN WINE as soon as the work day ends, because ITALIAN WINEs are classy. Nothing SEUSSIAN about this guy's life...."

Ha ha. I love when Rex Parker hates on a NYT crossword. (The all-caps words are in the puzzle.) I especially loved reading that while listening to Terry Jacks selling the words of the olden white man's favorite poet, Rod McKuen...



... who also turned up in today's puzzle.

Goodbye my friend, it's hard to die/When all the birds are singing in the sky/Now that the Spring is in the air...

I'm reading about "Seasons in the Sun" at Wikipedia. It's a Jacques Brel song, originally in French. Rod McKuen provided the English lyrics. It's one of the top-selling recordings of all time, and it also tends to get mentioned as one of the worst songs ever. I'm sure I loathed it as schlocky at the time (1973), but listening to it just now — while staring out the window at a sunlit redbud tree and a big rabbit sitting by the leaf-mulch pile — it felt beautiful. I see that the B-Side was "Put the Bone In," and that sounds dirty, but...



... it's not.

"HOOHA may appear in the dictionary with the definition that you see in the clue..."

"... but I can tell you that is not how that 'word' exists in most people's minds in 2019. I wanted HOOPLA and honestly considered the possibility that I'd have to cram two letters into one box somewhere in there."

Writes Rex Parker about today's NYT crossword, which clued "hooha" as "Big to-do."

Anyway... my dictionary, the unlinkable OED, defines "hooha" with one meaning only, "A commotion, a rumpus, a row." Historical examples include:

1931 Punch 14 Oct. 402/1 The devil of a hoo-ha in the papers about increasing the demand for English-grown corn....
1944 ‘N. Shute’ Pastoral ix. 206 There's a bit of a hoo-hah on about your tea-party....
1971 Country Life 27 May 1328/2 Some of these lovely irises may..be grown..successfully without much hoo-ha.

Then there's the unique usage by T.S. Eliot (in Sweeney Agonistes (1932)): "When you're alone in the middle of the night and you wake in a sweat and a hell of a fright/When you're alone in the middle of the bed and you wake like someone hit you on the head/You've had a cream of a nightmare dream and you've got the hoo-ha's coming to you . . . And perhaps you're alive/And perhaps you're dead Hoo ha ha Hoo ha ha Hoo Hoo Hoo."

Now, you might think Urban Dictionary would confirm your belief — what I'm assuming is your belief — that the primary meaning of "hooha" is female genitalia.

But no! It's: "Diddy Kong's Down-Throw + Up-Air combo in Super Smash Brothers 4. When Diddy Kong throws his opponent down everyone will yell "HOO". It is then followed by a loud 'HA' once he connects with the Up-Air. It was made to annoy the person playing against the Diddy Kong, thus making them extra salty."

" I would've ragequit right there if I didn't have this thingie to write."

Rex Parker does not like the Sunday crossword today.