Sports analyst Kimes / FRI 4-26-24 / Some long-tailed turtles / Device for an online conversation / Alternatives to booths, perhaps / Bare-bones outfit / Bird that can be "fire-capped" or "yellow-browed" / Big Apple fundraiser with a kind of apple in its name

Constructor: Matthew Stock and Christina Iverson

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: MINA Kimes (4D: Sports analyst Kimes) —

 

Mina Mugil Kimes (born September 8, 1985) is an American journalist who specializes in business and sports reporting. She has written for Fortune, Bloomberg News, and ESPN. She is a senior writer at ESPN and an analyst on NFL Live. (wikipedia)

• • •

Move over ["Dracula" heroine Harker]! There's a new MINA in town. I've been wondering when we were gonna see MINA (or KIMES) in a crossword grid, and here we are. Maybe a random proper noun to many of you, but I see her at the gym every time I'm there, which is to say my gym has ESPN on many of the TVs and so whenever NFL Live or Around the Horn or something like that happens to be on, there she is. I was at the bar earlier this month—there she was:

So even if you didn't know her, there's a good chance you've seen her ... ambiently. Ambient Kimes! She's also a crossword aficionado and an all-around charming human being, so this puzzle banked A Lot of goodwill with me right up front by including her. After that ... yeah, things were fine. Some highs, some lows, a pretty average Friday. Not a lot of whoosh for me today, as I couldn't get either of the long Across answers up top to go in, even with many many crosses already in place. Stared at -INBALLOTS for a bit, for sure (11A: Alternatives to booths, perhaps). And -CANTELEPHONE, too (14A: Device for an online conversation?). Oh, voting booths. Oh, tin cans. Connected by a string ("line"). I see, or saw, eventually. The front ends of those answers had impossible (for me) crosses. [Bar] for CANTINA was brutal (so many meanings of "bar"...), and MICRON, forget it, no idea (11D: One-millionth of a meter). If [Dots on a map] aren't ISLES then I don't know what they are, or at least am not confident enough to guess. That whole little NW bit was a mess. It ended up being the last thing I filled in. and man it felt dicey—was sure I was going to end up with some horrible-cross situation, but once I finally got SNAPPERS into place (I'd been reading the clue as [Some long-haired turtles] (???)), I could sorta squeeze that area from above and below and finally WRITE in the last answer, which I believe was WRITE. And right. The end. (Actually, it was TOWNS, but it's harder to pun on TOWNS ... something something Downs? Ah well, we'll never know...)

Those are good long answers up top, even though I struggled like hell with them. I also (aptly?) enjoyed FULL OF IT (34A: Talking nonsense) and the clue on MET GALA (45A: Big Apple fundraiser with a kind of apple in its name)—I love Met apples! Can't get enough of them! The long answers down below were the mirror opposite of their up-top cousins today, in that I solved both of them almost instantly, with very few crosses in place—and from the back end! They just seemed transparent. In fact, the only real difficulty down below came with the ambiguous clue at 37D: Perfect, e.g. (TENSE). I kept pronouncing and repronouncing "perfect" in my head, trying to figure out which it would be, per'-fect (adj.) or per-fect' (v.). But even knowing it's the adjective doesn't necessarily help too much. So that one crossed with DOS slowed me a tad (47A: They're OK) (i.e. DOS as opposed to DONTS). And then I wasn't sure of the vowel in PL-NKO (32D: "The Price is Right" game). If you'd told me it was PLUNKO I'd've believed you, so thank god RUDS is not a thing (41A: Purges => RIDS). Basically solved this one is clockwise fashion and so I ended where I started, with the difficulty of the NW. Was worried the SNAPPERS and the unheard of (by me) chess moves (PINS) were gonna absolutely wreck my big finish, but TOP DOGS got me through (20D: Big enchiladas).


Notes:

• 16A: National Bullying Prevention mo. (OCT.) — a worthy ... month, I'm sure, but how in the world and why in the world would anyone know this? May as well just clue it as [It's one of the mos., just guess]
• 42A: ___ the Lucky, nickname of a noted explorer (LEIF) — I'm guessing this is LEIF Erikson. I was not aware of his nickname. Apparently he got it for rescuing a group of shipwrecked sailors (hurray!) and converting Norse Greenland to Christianity (hur ... ray?).
• 7D: One for the record books? (CLERK) — the person who keeps the records (in their books) is a CLERK
• 53A: Signs of friction (SPATS) — wanted these to be SCABS (or SCARS)
• 6D: Intellectual gatherings (SALONS) — bad case of Crossword Brain today, in that I really wanted SYNODS here
• 25A: Trail marking (BLAZE) — when you "blaze a trail," you don't light it on fire, you mark it out ... with blazes, i.e. marks on trees.
• 30D: Cool bits of trivia (FUN FACTS) — fun fact: FUN FACTS are rarely fun and never actually "cool." Unless SNAPPERS really do have long hair—that would be a cool fun fact.

See you tomorrow!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Novel parodied by Umberto Eco's "Granita" / THU 4-25-24 / City in the Pacific Northwest with a Russian-sounding name / Spider-Man adversary played by Jamie Foxx / Plant with lance-shaped leaves / Longtime judge on "Britain's Got Talent" and "America's Got Talent"/ Something checkered in New York's past? / Detroit ___, nickname for Malcolm X / Powerful card in the game President

Constructor: Hanh Huynh

Relative difficulty: Easy (after you get the trick)

THEME: HOLY COW (61A: "Wow!" ... or a phonetic hint to this puzzle's theme) — the letter string "COW" appears three times inside longer answers; each time, the letters in "COW" are separated by circled squares which represent "HOLE"s—those squares are literal holes (i.e. empty space) in the "COW" answers (so that you get a bunch of "hole-y COWs"!), but actual letters ("H,O,L,E") in the Down crosses:

The "hole"-y COWs:

• SC O WL (14A: Dirty look)
• SIMON C O WELL (21A: Longtime judge on "Britain's Got Talent" and "America's Got Talent")
• MOSC O W, IDAHO (46A: City in the Pacific Northwest with a Russian-sounding name)

The "hole"-y crosses (!):

• CHOLER (3D: Ire)
• WHOLE NUMBERS (4D: 1, 2, 3, etc.)
• PEEP HOLES (7D: Low-tech security measures on some doors)
• CORNHOLE (9D: Popular backyard game)
• HOLES OUT (47D: Sinks the putt)
• WHOLESALE (44D: Not retail)

Word of the Day: MOSCOW, IDAHO (46A) —

Moscow (/ˈmɒskoʊ/ MOSS-koh) is a city and the county seat of Latah County, Idaho. Located in the North Central region of the state along the border with Washington, it had a population of 25,435 at the 2020 census. Moscow is the home of the University of Idaho, the state's land-grant institution and primary research university.

It is the principal city in the Moscow, Idaho Micropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of Latah County. The city contains over 60% of the county's population, and while the university is Moscow's dominant employer, the city also serves as an agricultural and commercial hub for the Palouse region.

Along with the rest of the Idaho Panhandle, Moscow is in the Pacific Time Zone. The elevation of its city center is 2,579 feet (786 m) above sea level. Two major highways serve the city, passing through the city center: US-95 (north-south) and ID-8 (east-west). The Pullman–Moscow Regional Airport, four miles (6 km) west, provides limited commercial air service. The local newspaper is the Moscow-Pullman Daily News. (wikipedia)

• • •

Woo hoo! If it makes me happy, it can't be that bad, and this one made me smile like I haven't smiled (at a puzzle) in a while, from the first "aha" ("Those squares are HOLEs! ... OK, why?") through the interesting themers and relatively clean grid to the revealer and the final "aha" ("HOLE"-y COWs!? ... omg, so dumb, I Love It!"). The revealer Really did its thing for me today. It really really paid off not trying to think too hard about the theme as I was solving (beyond the "HOLE"-goes-in-circle part). "All will be revealed," I assumed, and boy was I right. And then, like some kind of bonus blessing from the crossword gods, I followed the revealer with a trio (!?) of "?" clues All Of Which Landed: 

• 42D: Like like like this clue clue clue ... (ECHOEY)
• 37D: Something checkered in New York's past? (TAXI) 
• 44A: Wicked stuff? (WAX) (think candles)

OK that first one doesn't actually have a "?" in it, but you see what I mean—it tries to get cute ... and absolutely pulls it off. It's hard enough for the puzzle to get one of those wacky "?"-type clues to land most days, so three!? Right on the heels of a perfect reveal!? My lucky day. If this isn't one of my April "Puzzles of the Month," well, that means we're going to have some amazing puzzles in the next week, because right now this is my favorite themed puzzle of the month by a pretty decent margin (with Kwong's "A STAR IS 'B' OR 'N'" puzzle from last Thursday a worthy runner-up).

The hardest part was getting started, which, as I've said many times, is typical, especially with a tricky gimmick to SUSS out. 1A: Snap was probably the hardest answer in the whole (!) puzzle for me. I had JIF. Then wanted SEC. Then put Las Vegas on Mountain Time (MST) and tried MIN. Strike three. But I wasn't out! At some point the P from PST (Las Vegas's actual time zone) got me PIC ("gah, a camera snap!"), but the circled squares were still a mystery. From THRONES I was able to get enough of the puzzle to see NUMBERS, which allowed me to infer the "HOLE" (for WHOLE NUMBERS), which (finally) allowed me to see CHOLER! That's some olde-timey ire right there! You rarely see CHOLER outside older literature and vocabulary tests (thanks, Mr. Berglund!). So, a little work to HOE out those "HOLE"s (in "SCOWL"), and then a tentative "HOLE"-ing out of the "HOLE"s in SIMON COWELL, and when those "HOLE"s worked, I knew the remaining circled squares would also be "HOLE"s and the grid opened right up. What had been a medium-tough puzzle all of a sudden became quite easy, and I got some of that Whoosh feeling I usually look forward to on Fridays, sailing through SADDLES and SIMON COWELL, and ELECTRO and LOLITA, to end up in MOSCOW, IDAHO, where I have been before—my mom grew up in St. Maries, ID (also in the Idaho Panhandle) and at least one of her two sisters (my aunts) (obviously) went to college in Moscow (at the U. of Idaho). My aunt Nancy lived for a time in Lewiston, ID, which is only 30 miles or so south of Moscow. This is all to say that seeing MOSCOW, IDAHO in the puzzle made me happy in a way it is unlikely to have made most of you happy. You don't see the Idaho panhandle in puzzles much—Coeur d'ALENE sometimes, maybe—so it was delightful to see it brought into the thematic spotlight here. Despite not having spent a lot of time there, it's a part of the world I feel close to and am very fond of. 

Were there trouble spots? After getting the first HOLEs, not a lot. I hit the laptop brand (28D: Laptop brand) with only the "L" in place and had this flash of "&$^%, how should I know?" but then not more than a second or two later my brain was like "easy, buddy, you know this, it's LENOVO." Me: "Wait, how do I know that? I've never seen a LENOVO laptop in my life." Brain: "Who knows what you know? It's a mess in here, frankly. Just keep going!" I did not know (or forgot) that Malcolm X was ever nicknamed Detroit RED, but the rest of that NE corner was so easy that it hardly mattered (13D: Detroit ___, nickname for Malcolm X). I didn't really know the Spider-Man adversary in question, but I could infer ELECTRO pretty well after the first few letters (I like it—it's got good ... energy) (24D: Spider-Man adversary played by Jamie Foxx). I've got Carmen MCRAE on WAX in my house, so no trouble there (45A: Jazz singer Carmen). Only DETOO and LESSEE made me scowl (!) today. Otherwise, this was close to an ideal Thursday experience. Could've been a little tougher, but it's hard to complain about the difficulty level with a puzzle that sticks the landing like this. I have wondered aloud "Where have the delightful puzzles gone!?" Well—found one. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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