Ending with screen in a modern portmanteau / TUE 4-23-24 / West known for her double entendres / Announces the big reveal in a magic act / Small coastal nation bordering Iraq / Yuck! I've dated him before. Swipe left / Morning, mother / Machu Picchu builders

Constructor: Judy Bowers

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (Easy in general, but parsing a couple of those theme answers was tricky)

THEME: TWO (54D: Number of letters in every word of the answers to the starred clues — that's it; that's the theme:

Theme answers:

• "OH NO, EW, HE IS MY EX" (16A: *"Yuck! I've dated him before. Swipe left!")
• "SO, IS IT / UP TO ME?" (23A: *With 42-Across, "Well, do I decide or not?")
• "DO AS WE DO" (32A: *"Follow our lead!")
• "HI, MA. I'M UP" (37A: *"Morning, mother!")
• "OK IF WE GO IN ON IT?" (52A: *"Can this be a gift from all of us?")

Word of the Day: IROC (4D: Classic Camaro) —

 

The third-generation Chevrolet Camaro is an American pony car which was introduced for the 1982 model year by Chevrolet. It continued to use General Motors' F-body platform and produced a "20th Anniversary Commemorative Edition" for 1987 and "25th Anniversary Heritage Edition" for 1992. These were also the first Camaros with factory fuel injection, four-speed automatic transmissions, five-speed manual transmissions, four-cylinder engines, 16-inch wheels, and hatchback bodies. For 1987 a convertible Camaro was reintroduced, converted by ASC in relatively small numbers. The third-generation Camaro continued through the 1992 model year. [...] For 1985, Chevrolet introduced the IROC-Z version that was named after the International Race of Champions. Offered as an option package on the Z28, the Camaro IROC-Z featured an upgraded suspension, lowered ride height, specially valved Delco-Bilstein shocks, larger diameter sway bars, a steering/frame brace known as the "wonder bar", a special decal package, and an optional Tuned Port Injection system taken from the Chevrolet Corvette. It also shared the Corvette's Goodyear "Gatorback" unidirectional tires in a 245/50/VR16 size vs. the Corvette's 255/50/VR16 size, and received unique new aluminum 5-spoke 16-by-8-inch wheels. The new wheels were designed with different offsets front and rear, resulting in the words "Front" or "Rear" cast into the wheels to distinguish which wheel went where. // The Camaro IROC-Z was on Car and Driver magazine's Ten Best list for 1985. (wikipedia)

• • •

I actually psyched myself before opening today's puzzle, telling myself, "Come on! ... it's gonna be a good day! You're gonna find things to like in this puzzle!" And I am. But mostly I'm not. I don't know what you want me to tell you. I cannot pretend that this is acceptable. Even if you somehow found the theme charming, the fill, dear lord, I haven't winced this much in so long. Answer after answer that had me EXCLAIMing "Why?! This grid isn't that hard to fill, why is ACER crossing IROC in this tiny little corner you could fill a million ways!?" That NW corner, i.e. the very beginning, was an omen. 99% of the time, or thereabouts, when the fill in the NW corner is so bad that I have the urge to take a screenshot, the rest of the puzzle ... well, it doesn't improve. If you can't get a little corner like that into shape, what hope do you have with the rest of the grid? Actually, that was one of the weird things about this grid—the fill is worst up top and down below, where the the thematic material *isn't* so dense, while in the middle, where theme material is packed close together, the fill holds up, for the most part (not loving GAEL / SALA, but whatever—at least the theme density gives you an excuse there). I haven't audibly OOFed this much at a grid in a while, from IROC ACER to AGER ICERS to APAIN and UPRISE (do you mean "rise up"?) (42D: Rebel) through all the rest of the middling to sub-middling 3-4-5s, this one kinda hurt. Usually the long stuff comes to the rescue a bit, but probably the worst thing in the grid is an astonishing 10 letters long: SAYS PRESTO! (10D: Announces the big reveal in a magic act). I think I actually said "oh my god, No!" to my computer as I filled that in. SAYS PRESTO!!? I normally use EAT A SANDWICH as the gold standard of "random verb phrase that absolutely cannot stand on its own" but SAYS PRESTO really wants to be the new representative of that category. You say this ... when describing a magic act? How many ... times ... have you done that? (Answer: none, no times). SAYS PRESTO is about as solid an answer as EATS PESTO or LEAVES MODESTO. A comically preposterous answer.

As for the theme, I don't know. Hate to use the word "preposterous" two times so close together, but some of these imagined TWO-word statements do seem that way. I almost like them better when they *are* that way, which is why "DO AS WE DO" kinda ruins things—that's nowhere near the wacky weight class of the other themers. The least a theme like this can do is be consistently, ridiculously wacky, because let me tell you, as revealers go, TWO ... TWO? ... is not really cutting it. I wrote that answer in about halfway through my solve and just stared at it. Then stared into middle distance for a few seconds while I contemplated the nothingness of being that is TWO, summoning the courage to continue. I can't go on. I'll go on. The theme answers are frequently forced. Would you be as informal as "EW" but then use the formal "HE IS" instead of "HE'S"? Unlikely. And there's nothing in the "HI MA, I'M UP" clue suggesting that mom is rousing anyone—"morning" doesn't equate to "I'M UP" very well, or only tenuously. And the initial "words" in a few themers ("OH," "SO," "OK") seem arbitrary. But as I said up front, I can see finding the theme wacky and charming. I didn't, particularly, but I can see how one could. I cannot see how anyone could enjoy how poorly filled this grid is. It tops out at ordinary and frequently sinks far, far lower.

On the plus side, very easy! It's an undersized (14x) grid, so that'll help your solving time for sure, but that's not the only reason this was a speedy experience. Lots of short answers (as we've established), most of them very easy to get (esp. if you are familiar with the full panoply of crosswordese). I had one wrong answer while solving: FOLD for WILT (33D: Crumble under pressure). "Crumble" and WILT couldn't be more dissimilar at a literal level, but figuratively, yeah, the clue works. Time for coffee now. "HI MA, I'M UP!" (just saying hi to my mom in Longmont, CO, who maybe still reads me every morning—I haven't checked recently, but it seems likely. She's pretty ... let's say, loyal, lol. Love you, mom! Did you get my letter? The owl card? Let me know... and say hi to Amy [my sister] when you see her. XO)

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. Happy Shakespeare's birthday (observed) 

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Spilling the tea, so to speak / MON 4-22-24 / Make out, in Britspeak / Slowpoke in a shell / British princess who was an Olympic equestrian / Two-legged stands / Mosaic decoration

Constructor: David J. Kahn

Relative difficulty: Very easy (Downs-only)

THEME: From COAL to WIND — for Earth Day ... a word ladder, with a few extra climate change-related theme answers

The ladder:

• COAL (1A: *Nonrenewable energy source ... and the start of an eight-step word ladder)
• COOL 
• WOOL
• WOOD (35A: *Energy source whose production contributes to 36-Across)
• FOOD (39A: *Energy source whose production contributes to 36-Across)
• FOND
• FIND
• WIND (64A: *Renewable energy source ... and the end of the word ladder)

Theme answers:

• GREEN POWER (18A: Sustainably produced electricity)
• GLOBAL WARMING (36A: One symptom of climate change)
• FOSSIL FUEL (54A: Carbon-based energy source)

Word of the Day: ABU Dhabi (41A: ___ Dhabi) —

Abu Dhabi (UK: /ˌæbuːˈdæbi/, US: /ˌɑːbuːˈdɑːbi/; Arabic: أَبُو ظَبِي ʾAbū Ẓabī Arabic pronunciation:[ɐˈbuˈðˤɑbi]) is the capital of the United Arab Emirates. The city of Abu Dhabi is the capital of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi and the UAE's second-most populous city after Dubai.

The city of Abu Dhabi is located on an island in the Persian Gulf, off the Central West Coast. Most of the city and the Emirate reside on the mainland connected to the rest of the country. As of 2021, Abu Dhabi's urban area had an estimated population of 1.5 million, out of 2.9 million in the emirate of Abu Dhabi, as of 2016. The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority is headquartered in the city, and was the world's 3rd largest sovereign wealth fund in 2022. Abu Dhabi itself has over a trillion US dollars worth of assets under management in a combination of various sovereign wealth funds headquartered there.

Abu Dhabi houses local and federal government offices and is the home of the United Arab Emirates Government and the Supreme Council for Financial and Economic Affairs. The city is home to the UAE's President, a member of the Al Nahyan family. Abu Dhabi's rapid development and urbanisation, coupled with the massive oil and gas reserves and production and relatively high average income, have transformed it into a large, developed metropolis. It is the country's centre of politics and industry, and a major culture and commerce center. Abu Dhabi accounts for about two-thirds of the roughly $503 billion UAE economy. (wikipedia)

• • •

Wow, a word ladder. Haven't seen one of those in ages, perhaps because they are in no way interesting. Buncha four letter words, the end. Yes, there's a quasi-environmental theme here, with the puzzle "going green" as it shifts from COAL to WIND, but the puzzle kind of undoes that word ladder with the longer them answers, which go from GREEN POWER up top to FOSSIL FUEL down below, with some species extinction (DIES OFF) along the way. This puzzle is meant to commemorate Earth Day, which is today, I just learned. I suppose it's vaguely Earth-y, but only vaguely. This puzzle doesn't have a climate change theme so much as it has a collection of words one might hear in a conversation about climate change. Maybe it's supposed to be dramatizing (encouraging?) a shift from nonrenewable to renewable energy? Some of the word-ladder words get climate-related clues, but the cluing there feels pretty forced, especially with so many of the ... rungs? ... having zero to do with climate. One of them (COOL) is even clued via air-conditioning (21A: *Air-conditioned, say), which seems bizarrely wrong-headed in a puzzle that's supposedly touting GREEN POWER and the fight against GLOBAL WARMING. The whole thing doesn't quite come together for me. It's like it knew the word ladder wasn't really theme-y enough, so it threw in a few buzz words and, Ta da: Theme! Ah well, it's Monday, and I've done worse puzzles. 

The Downs-only experience was remarkably easy, with only the SW corner giving me even the slightest bit of trouble. Took me a lot of Downs before I could reason out PERSONA, though RAN ON was the only Down there that gave me any real pause (I wanted something one-word, like RAVED) (33D: Talked incessantly). Lots of answers ending (or beginning) in prepositions today, which should've / could've made parsing those answers a bit of a problem, but I got most of those at first pass. Three ONs today is a bit much (ON A RUN, RAN ON, DAWNED ON), and then there's AT HAND and LOUSES UP and CUED IN, the last of which was the only Down that I abandoned and came back to. Oh, I think I abandoned AT HAND at first too. I actually wanted CUED IN, but something about it felt wrong—I wasn't sure it was a real phrase, musically speaking (45D: Signaled to begin, as a conductor might). But it all worked out rather easily in the end. I was lucky enough to know all the crossword people, from Sheryl LEE Ralph to LEN Cariou to Leslie NIELSEN (who wasn't clued as Leslie NIELSEN, but that's the great thing about solving Downs-only—those Across clues can be Anything you want them to be). Just watched Leslie NIELSEN on a Season 1 episode of The Love Boat, where he played an old friend of Captain Stubing's who is worried that his impending marriage won't work out because his fiancée is just too young for him (she's late 20s, he's pushing 50). This was his second Season 1 episode—in the earlier episode, he was married to Eva Gabor! Like all Season 1 stories, the Leslie Nielsen age gap one was incredibly stupid. Am I going to stop watching? I am not. Rick Nelson was on the one I watched today! And Jamie Farr! And an uncredited pre-famous Shelley Long! And you never know when Charo is going to show up! Stop watching? Unlikely.

I don't see anything else here that particularly needs explaining or commentating, so I'm gonna go read now. Enjoy Earth Day, whatever that means to you. I'm gonna spend it ... calling my insurance company to inquire as to why I got a massive bill for what I assumed was routine blood work. I can't remember ever paying a dime for blood tests, but wow do they want me to pay dimes this time. So many dimes. I really really hope there's been a mistake. Anyway, some fun phone calls await me this morning. And then a run to burn off the inevitable post-phone call anger. I will likely be running on the earth, so in my own (very) little way, I guess I will be celebrating Earth Day. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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