Constructor: Michael Paleos

Relative issue: Easy 

THEME: You’ve bought mail … — theme solutions all finish with phrases referring to a bit of (snail) mail:

Theme solutions:

• LOWERCASE LETTER (16A: The “e,” however not the “B,” of eBay)
• PASSPORT STAMP (25A: Traveler’s proof of entry)
• TERM OF ADDRESS (41A: “Madam President” or “Your Honor”)
• PUSH THE ENVELOPE (55A: Test boundaries)

Word of the Day: MOTHRA (9D: Winged Godzilla nemesis of Japanese movie) —

Mothra (Japanese: モスラ, Hepburn: Mosura) is a fictional monster, or kaiju, that first appeared within the 1961 movie Mothra, produced and distributed by Toho Studios. Mothra has appeared in a number of Toho tokusatsu movies, most frequently as a recurring character within the Godzilla franchise. She is usually portrayed as a colossal sentient larva (caterpillar) or imago, accompanied by two miniature fairies talking on her behalf. Unlike different Toho monsters, Mothra is a largely heroic character, having been variously portrayed as a protector of her personal island tradition, the Earth and Japan. Mothra’s design is influenced by silk worms, their imagos, and people of large silk moths within the household Saturniidae. The character is usually depicted hatching offspring (in some instances, twins) when approaching loss of life, a nod to the Saṃsāra doctrine of quite a few Indian religions.

Mothra is considered one of Toho’s hottest monsters and second solely to Godzillain her complete variety of movie appearances. Polls taken in the course of the early Nineteen Nineties indicated that Mothra was significantly widespread amongst girls who have been, on the time, the most important demographic amongst Japan’s movie-going viewers, a incontrovertible fact that prompted the filming of 1992’s Godzilla vs. Mothra, which was the best-attended Toho movie since King Kong vs. Godzilla. IGN listed Mothra as #3 on their “Top 10 Japanese Movie Monsters” listing, whereas Complex listed the character as #7 on its “The 15 Most Badass Kaiju Monsters of All Time” listing. (emph. mine)

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Wow, women like MOTHRA, who knew!? I be taught one thing every single day doing this weblog, whether or not I prefer it or not. I solved this one largely Downs-only (I began regular then remembered I most popular to do Mondays Downs-only, and anyway, I do not bear in mind truly an Across clue ever). It was really easy to do Downs-only that I can solely think about it was even simpler to do the common manner, although that will not be true in any respect, since by fixing Downs-only you keep away from half the clues, which implies you keep away from half the alternatives for drawing a clean! Looking this one over, I’m kinda glad I went Downs-only as I missed at having to guess at something over 6 letters lengthy, and I additionally missed each of the ugly-looking partials—solutions that my Downs-only mind needed to rationalize as legitimate, i.e. if you find yourself with ITIN as one of many crosses, it’s important to determine, “Do I’ve an error, or is the Across a partial?” Today, the Downs have been so stable that I simply determined that the partial have to be proper, and it was. See additionally OUTA (!?). These are actually tough partials, and there are two of them, in a non-demanding grid, which I do not actually get. The grid is already virtually fully devoid of longer non-theme solutions (nothing longer than 7, and solely two of these (!?). Seems prefer it should not have been too onerous to keep away from partials fully, however as a substitute we get two, in addition to the same old slew of frequent quick stuff (APOP OENO TSPS AMAT ARTE ARTIE STET and on and on, and so forth and so forth and so forth). This would’ve been dreary to unravel the common manner; no less than Downs-only gave my mind one thing additional to do as I used to be assessing the validity of my solutions (that “one thing additional”: be sure that the Acrosses I used to be making made sense). 

The theme itself is so primary, it feels prefer it might’ve appeared 30-40 years in the past, no drawback. Ultra-simple. Plain to the purpose of blandness. I assume all of the mail-related phrases are clued in non-mail-related contexts, but it surely’s not like that distinction is each terribly outstanding. The “envelope” in PUSH THE ENVELOPE remains to be … an “envelope,” even when it is just a metaphorical one. I simply do not see what was NYTXW-worthy about this one. If you are rejecting 19 of each 20 puzzles you obtain (or no matter it’s now), I do not fairly get how this one makes it. Also, this makes six puzzles in a row now by solo male constructors, which seems like backsliding. More guys named “Michael” have had puzzles printed within the final week than have girls. Michaels: 2, Women: 1 (and also you gotta return to Tuesday for her). Hopefully the NYTXW will get again to one thing near gender parity quickly. They have been (lastly) doing OK for a bit there.