Constructor: Grant Thackray

Relative issue: Medium

THEME: blankING blankER(S) — acquainted phrases following the “blankING blankER(S)” sample have the blanks reversed, creating wacky phrase:

Theme solutions:

• STUFFING STOCKER (16A: Grocery retailer employee on the times main as much as Thanksgiving?) (“stocking stuffer”)
• SAUCING FLYERS (25A: Pamphlets on methods to use marinara?) (“flying saucer”)
• BETTING GETTER (45A: Bookie?) (“getting higher)
• NUMBING TRACKERS (60A: Devices that assist dentists monitor anesthesia?) (“monitoring quantity”)

Word of the Day: LEE Shubert (59A: Shubert of Broadway’s Shubert Theatre) —

Lee Shubert (born Levi Schubart; March 25, 1871– December 25, 1953) was a Lithuanian-born American theatre proprietor/operator and producer and the eldest of seven siblings of the theatrical Shubert household. […] Shubert was 11 years outdated when the household emigrated to the United States and settled in Syracuse, New York, the place quite a lot of Jewish households from their hometown already had been dwelling. His father’s alcoholism stored the household in troublesome monetary circumstances, and Lee Shubert went to work promoting newspapers on a avenue nook. With borrowed cash, he and youthful brothers Sam and Jacob ultimately launched into a enterprise enterprise that led to them to change into the profitable operators of a number of theaters in upstate New York. // The Shubert brothers determined to develop to the large market in New York City, and on the finish of March 1900 they leased the Herald Square Theatre on the nook of Broadway and thirty fifth Street in Manhattan. Leaving youthful brother Jacob at house to handle their present theatres, Lee and Sam Shubert moved to New York City, the place they laid the foundations for what was to change into the biggest theatre empire within the twentieth century, together with the Winter Garden and Shubert Theatres.

• • •

***HELLO, READERS AND FELLOW SOLVERS*** How is the brand new yr treating you? Well, I hope. Me, uh, not nice to date (COVID, ), however I’m 95% higher, and was by no means terribly sick to start with, so I’ve each cause to consider issues will flip round for me shortly, thank God (and vaccines). Anyway, it is early January, which implies it is time as soon as once more for my annual week-long pitch for monetary contributions to the weblog. Every yr I ask readers to contemplate what the weblog is price to them on an annual foundation and provides accordingly. I’m undecided what to say about this previous yr. This will sound bizarre, or melodramatic—or possibly it will not—however each time I attempt to write about 2022, all I can assume is “properly, my cat died.” She (Olive) died this previous October, very younger, of a silly congenital coronary heart drawback that we simply could not repair (thanks all on your sort phrases of condolence, by the best way). I’m trying on the photograph I used for final yr’s fundraising pitch, and it is a image of me sitting at my desk (this desk, the one I’m typing at proper now, the one I write at each day) with Olive sitting on my shoulder, observing me, and making me chortle. It’s a joyous image. Here, I’m simply gonna put up it once more:

I really like the photograph each as a result of you possibly can inform how goofy she is, and the way goofy she made me. Her loss harm for the plain causes, but in addition as a result of she was a lot part of my every day routine, my every day rhythms and rituals. She was on a regular basis. Quotidian. Just … on me, close to me, being a weirdo, particularly within the (very) early mornings after I was scripting this weblog. She took me out of myself. She additionally made me conscious of how a lot the quotidian issues, how every day rituals break up and manage the day, mark time, floor you. They’re straightforward to trivialize, these rituals, exactly as a result of they *aren’t* particular. Feed the cats once more, make the espresso once more, resolve the crossword once more, and so on. But dropping Olive made me reevaluate the every day, the quotidian, the apparently trivial. In a elementary manner, these small every day issues *are* life. No in the future is so essential, or so totally different from the others, however cumulatively, they add up, and thru the times upon days you develop a follow—a follow of affection, care, and a focus given to the issues that matter. If you are studying this, then crossword puzzles are undoubtedly an essential ritual for you, simply as writing about crosswords for you all is a vital ritual for me. It provides me a lot. I hope that even at my most crucial, my real love for crosswords—for the best way my mind lights up on crosswords—comes by. I additionally hope that the weblog brings you leisure, perception, laughter … even (particularly) if you happen to disagree with me a lot (most? all?) of the time. 

[man, I really wear the hell  out of this red fleece…]

The weblog started years in the past as an experiment in treating the ephemeral—the here-today, gone-tomorrow—prefer it actually mattered. I wished to cease and have a look at this 15×15 (or 21×21 factor) and take it critically, take heed to it, see what it was making an attempt to do, take into consideration what I favored or did not like about it. In quick, I gave the puzzle my time and a focus. And I proceed to do this, each day (Every! Day!). And it’s work. Numerous work. Asking for cash every year (and solely every year) is an acknowledgment of that truth. There is nothing to subscribe to right here … no Substack or Kickstarter or Patreon … and there are not any advertisements, ever. I desire to maintain monetary issues easy and direct. I’ve no “hustle” in me past placing my ass on this chair each morning and writing.

I had enjoyable making this puzzle (due to Rachel Fabi and Neville Fogarty for proofing it for me!). For non-snail-mailers who need to resolve the puzzle, don’t be concerned: I’ll make the puzzle out there for everybody a while subsequent month. Please notice: I do not preserve a “mailing checklist” and do not share my contributor data with anybody. And if you happen to give by snail mail and (for some cause) do not need a thank-you card, simply point out “NO CARD.”  Again, as ever, I’m so grateful on your readership and help. Now on to at present’s puzzle…

• • •

Whatever humor is offered on this theme idea stays largely untapped. When your “wacky” phrases need to resort to “phrases” like SAUCING and GETTER, you are straining too onerous, and what you get are groaners as an alternative of laughers. Is “laugher” not a phrase? Would you like “GETTER of guffaws?” Ugh, GETTER. That just isn’t a phrase you are going to see, ever, except it is preceded by GO-, which implies it is at finest a phrase half. And “self-SAUCING pudding” is the one factor that involves thoughts after I strive to think about a case the place somebody would possibly use SAUCING, which makes SAUCING, like GETTER, one thing you (I) solely ever encounter after a hyphen. The first and final themers work positive—they don’t seem to be laughers, however they’re strong, they work, I can think about the wackiness they’re asking me to think about. But BETTING GETTER, no, I can not think about that. Am I actually SAUCING my PASTA each time I put … sauce on it? Sigh, I suppose. But SAUCING FLYERS simply feels sooooo awkward, as if the flyers themselves had been placing sauce in your PASTA. I simply discovered the execution right here terribly awkward. 

[GLEN!]

BETTING GETTER, along with being the worst of the bunch, was additionally the toughest of the bunch, with its one-word clue ([Bookie?]), and the reply itself slicing by the highest of a giant chunk of open house on the backside, which made the Downs in that house onerous to see. I imply completely no disrespect after I ask the query: Since when is TULANE “prestigious”? I’ve been in larger ed. for my entire grownup life and I’ve by no means heard such an attribution / allegation. It’s a positive college, for positive, however … I simply assume you are stretching the idea of “status” slightly skinny. Please remember the fact that I feel the idea of “status” in larger ed is nearly full bull****. That is, status exists, however there is not any direct correspondence between status and high quality of (undergraduate) schooling. Anyway, I train on the “Crown Jewel of the SUNY System” and I might by no means name my very own college “prestigious” both, so I simply do not know what compelled anybody to place “Prestigious” on this clue for TULANE. It’s patently pointless and face-scrunchingly / head-tiltingly inaccurate. “Prestigious” additionally made it in some way more durable to get, as did the truth that it was cross-referenced to a solution in its personal part, one which it really crossed (NOLA). I believed I used to be coping with a college in PISA for a bit, and so was making an attempt to think about some “prestigious” outdated Italian college. This part additionally incorporates the ugliness of GETS A C (I simply have “oof” written within the margin) and the outright ridiculousness of AGENTRY, which was my last reply. AGENTRY!? Now that is a laugher. As in, I actually laughed at how dumb a phrase it’s as I wrote it in. Quite a solution to end up.

So the highest half ended up being rather more satisfying, and simpler, than the underside half. And whereas I feel SAUCING FLYERS is a ridiculous phrase, I’ve some fondness for it as a result of it is soooo ridiculous, as a result of it makes me consider ETS throwing PASTA sauce out of their UFO, and since it is the primary themer that I obtained. I had STUFFING and SAUCING early and no thought what was supposed to come back after. I really wrote in STOCKING or one thing like that early on, but it surely did not match. And then I obtained the again finish of FLYERS and hastily made the “pamphlets” / FLYERS connection *and* noticed the “alien craft” inversion. It was “aha” second, even when SAUCING FLYERS itself is simply nuts. After that, I lastly “obtained” the primary themer, and from then on, I used to be in enterprise.

It wasn’t a ROUGH START, by any means, but it surely was slightly sluggish. Trouble getting began coupled with bother within the aforementioned BETTING GETTER / TULANE space meant that the puzzle nearly felt prefer it rose to what I’d think about regular Thursday-level issue. Oh, that clue on LEE was brutal for me, however the crosses had been EFFORTLESS (actually, one of many crosses is EFFORTLESS), so I survived. Any different powerful stuff? Not actually. I believed the [Maker of the first portable music player] was ZUNE for a bit, in order that was enjoyable. LOL at that KIA slogan, “The energy to shock” (62D). Recently they “stunned” the world with a emblem that nobody could make any sense of.

I used to be in Auckland after I first observed this emblem and figured I used to be coping with some abroad model of automotive that we simply do not have within the States. But no. That “KN” is definitely “KIA,” in some way. What a (okay)nightmare, design-wise. And the unique oval emblem was so good (and clear). It’s OK to not change issues that do not want altering, it truly is. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. what the hell “struggle” did the EMUS win!?!? (51A: Winners of a 1932 Australian “struggle”) … [Fires up Google] … Wow, that is terrible.

Not how I’d clue EMUS, however if you happen to like cutesy clues in regards to the tried slaughter of indigenous hen species, properly, it is your fortunate day, I suppose.