Constructor: Zach Sherwin and Andrea Carla Michaels

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium 

THEME: honestly, I have no IDEA — looks like the first three letters of each theme answer ... repeat ... somewhere else in that answer ... is that really it??? The letters don't ... do anything or mean anything or ... anything? Wow, OK:

Theme answers:

• OKEFENOKEE (18A: Swamp in "Pogo")
• "ANIMANIACS" (24A: 1990s cartoon series featuring Yakko, Wakko and Dot)
• "THIRTYSOMETHING" (39A: Baby-boomer series that starred Ken Olin)
• WORDSWORTH (55A: Poet William who wrote "The Prelude")
• CHINCHILLA (63A: South American rodent with soft, dense fur)

Word of the Day: Jeannette RANKIN (40D: Jeannette ___ first woman elected to Congress) —

Jeannette Pickering Rankin (June 11, 1880 – May 18, 1973) was an American politician and women's rights advocate, and the first woman to hold federal office in the United States. She was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Republican from Montana in 1916, and again in 1940. As of 2022, Rankin is still the only woman ever elected to Congress from Montana.

Each of Rankin's Congressional terms coincided with initiation of U.S. military intervention in the two World Wars. A lifelong pacifist, she was one of 50 House members who opposed the declaration of war on Germany in 1917. In 1941, she was the only member of Congress to vote against the declaration of war on Japan following the attack on Pearl Harbor.

A suffragist during the Progressive Era, Rankin organized and lobbied for legislation enfranchising women in several states including Montana, New York, and North Dakota. While in Congress, she introduced legislation that eventually became the 19th Constitutional Amendment, granting unrestricted voting rights to women nationwide. She championed a multitude of diverse women's rights and civil rights causes throughout a career that spanned more than six decades. (wikipedia)

It's not uncommon for me to find the Monday puzzle a little dull, or a little corny, but it is nearly unheard of for me to find it completely thematically inscrutable. I simply have no idea what the theme is supposed to be. If the full extent of the theme is simply "the first three letters of each answer repeat themselves within the answer," then I haven't seen a theme so startlingly unworthy of publication in a long, long time. There's no wordplay ... the repeated three-letter strings don't make words, or sounds, or ... anything. They Don't Do Anything. In each case, there are just three random letters ... that then repeat. Is that ... unusual? Strange? It seems so ordinary, so banal, that I can't imagine anyone's ever thinking it would amount to theme material, and I really Really can't imagine an editor's thinking "yes! I get a hundred submissions a week but this! This is the one." What in the world is happening? Maybe, maybe if there had been a revealer, some snappy concept, something that would make the repeated letter strings make any kind of sense, then the concept would've been tolerable—good revealers often turn seemingly unremarkable answers into a really tight and interesting set. But this ... what is this? I pity the Monday-level puzzles that were rejected to make room for this one. I don't normally read the other blogs, but since my friend Rachel writes for NYT's own "Wordplay" blog on Monday, I thought I'd jump over there and at least make sure I wasn't missing anything ... and I was not. Also, she didn't "get" the theme either—this is telling. I did enjoy reacquainting myself with Jeannette RANKIN, but the pleasure pretty much started and ended there.

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Constructor: Sheldon Polonsky

Relative difficulty: Easy, maybe Easy-Medium

THEME: "Cinemagrams" — movies clued as (allegedly) apt anagrams of their names:

Theme answers:

• "PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN" (22A: "Sea captain: robber, thief (2003)")
• "IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE" (34A: "True fellow is a find (1946)")
• "THE TOWERING INFERNO" (52A: "Re: town fire one night (1974)")
• "THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA" (75A: "Evil Streep had award (2006)")
• "WHEN HARRY MET SALLY" (91A: "M. Ryan, what's her yell? (1989)")
• "A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET" (110A: "R.E.M.: alarming to the teens (1984)")

Word of the Day: LEON Bridges (39D: Soul singer Bridges) —

Todd Michael "Leon" Bridges (born July 13, 1989) is an American soul singer, songwriter and record producer. He is best known for his 2015 song "Coming Home", which received regular airplay and was also a Top 10 Most Viral Track on Spotify. Bridges' debut album, also titled Coming Home, was released on June 23, 2015, on Columbia Recordsand subsequently nominated for Best R&B Album at the 58th Annual Grammy Awards.

I'm never going to feel much admiration or affection for a theme that can basically be lifted from a sporcle quiz (find at least two of today's anagrams here, for instance). I always assume that the "jokes" are lifted (borrowed, if you like) from somewhere else, and anyway, all you end up with, whether the anagrams are original or not, is a few movie titles in your grid. And today, I didn't even need to really read the clues very well. Just get a few crosses, and the very famous movie titles just slid right in. Even if I decide I am a lover of this type of humor, and the concept is the greatest thing I've ever heard of, still I don't know how any of these produce more than a polite, slightly forced smile—except for that last one. The clue for "A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET" is eerily on the nose; plus the phrase "the teens" is just inherently funny to me. So my most generous assessment is that one of these six themers is good. That said, the clue for "THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA" barely makes any sense at all. Streep didn't even win the Oscar for that role (she did win a Golden Globe, but come on, no one takes those seriously). The "Wonderful Life" clue is dull, the "Harry / Sally" one is tortured ("M." Ryan?). You get the idea. All hail Freddy Kruger. The rest of these can go straight to video (a phrase that used to connote inferior quality, kids; ask your parents).

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Constructor: Ori Brian

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: CLARA Schumann (14A: Pianist/composer Schumann) —

Clara Josephine Schumann ([ˈklaːʁa ˈʃuːman]; née Wieck; 13 September 1819 – 20 May 1896) was a German pianist, composer, and piano teacher. Regarded as one of the most distinguished pianists of the Romantic era, she exerted her influence over a 61-year concert career, changing the format and repertoire of the piano recital from displays of virtuosity to programs of serious works. She also composed solo piano pieces, a piano concerto (her Op. 7), chamber music, choral pieces, and songs.

She grew up in Leipzig, where her father, Friedrich Wieck, was a pianist and teacher, and her mother, Mariane, was a pianist, singer, and piano teacher. She was a child prodigy, trained by her father. She began touring at age eleven, and was successful in Paris and Vienna, among other cities. She married the composer Robert Schumann, and the couple had eight children. Together, they encouraged Johannes Brahms and maintained a close relationship with him. She premiered many works by her husband and by Brahms in public.

After Robert Schumann's early death, she continued her concert tours in Europe for decades, frequently with the violinist Joseph Joachim and other chamber musicians. Beginning in 1878, she was an influential piano educator at Dr. Hoch's Konservatorium in Frankfurt, where she attracted international students. She edited the publication of her husband's work. Schumann died in Frankfurt, but was buried in Bonn beside her husband. (wikipedia)

It's possible this puzzle has confused SEX-POSITIVE (34A: Openly discussing one's kinks, say) with OVERSHARING, depending on the imagined context, but most other things it seems to get right. It's got a lovely central stack with absolutely solid longer answers slicing through it, and most of the rest of the fill holds up pretty well. The only wincing I did was at the very, very end, when I stepped in that puddle of names at the bottom of the grid. Bad enough to meet Paul RYAN down there (so many RYANs in the world, whyyyyy?), but then to have my final square be the intersection of two names I don't know crossing at a vowel ... bah. Major anticlimax. I don't know why you don't clue at least one of those names, either EVA or ANNE, as someone legitimately famous, or at least from somewhere outside pop culture. Go back in time, go sideways into science or literature, something. There are too many ALLEGEd "celebrity chefs" for me to keep track of. So, you know, keep EVA Noblezada and move ANNE back in time or to some other field. It would be great if ANNE were a much more universally famous person, too. You can clue very famous people in tricky ways, so you don't have to give up difficulty. Nobody likes name soup, particularly short-name soup, so at least draw from very different fields or time periods. Especially when crossing names at a vowel. Luckily, in this case, "A" was the only reasonable guess. I had no idea if "EVE" or "EVA" was correct, but _NNE leaves you with only one plausible option. If I hadn't *finished* here, I probably wouldn't be talking about this moment nearly so much. But how you finish matters, even if where you finish is an unpredictable matter of chance. I can't believe I'm going to advocate for ERA, but I do think ERA / ANNE is better than EVA / ANNE. Ordinary words > short names of not-terribly-famous people crossing at a vowel. "Why are you focusing on these tiny details!?!?!" I know. I just can't dismiss the small stuff as insignificant. Every inch of the puzzle should be thoughtfully and carefully designed, even if many solvers will blow through it in 10 seconds. Plus I'm just generally interested in the kinds of values that drive construction and editorial choices. Putting new people in the puzzle! Good! But I tend to land in the "keep the name count reasonably low" and "don't cross unfamous names at vowels" and "draw from lots of different knowledge bases" camps.

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Constructor: Damon Gulczynski

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: PILAU (48D: Rice dish) —

Pilau (UK spelling) or pilaf (US spelling) is a rice dish (or in some regions, a wheat dish) of South Asian, Central Asian and Middle Eastern origin. The recipe usually involves cooking the rice soaked in stock or broth, adding meat, spices, and other ingredients such as vegetables, and employing some technique for achieving cooked grains that do not adhere. (wikipedia)

So PILAU ... *is* PILAF. Wow. Did you all know this, and if so, why did you keep this information from me. All my British readers and friends, all the crosswords I've done before, how could you betray me like this? I knew PILAF, of course, and I knew PALAU (the western Pacific island country that once hosted at least one season of "Survivor"), but PILAU, that one came from outer space. Really really would've appreciated a "to Brits" or some qualifier like that. I searched my blog and the only reference I can find to PILAU is in a reader comment from 2008 which talks about having had a (mistaken) terminal "U" for some answer (PILAF, it turns out) and, as a result, writing in PILAU. I can only imagine the commenter was British or otherwise just very familiar with all manner of Briticisms. I had to stare at that cross and finally make a decision. Write in wrong-looking PILAU, or write in wrong-looking HFEYS. In the end, I decided HUEYS was absolutely unimpeachable, whereas maybe PILAU ... was just some rice dish I hadn't heard of. This was the correct call, though it turns out I *had* heard of the [Rice dish] in question. I went looking for something out of the ordinary, but Google informed me pretty quickly that PILAU was just ... PILAF, the answer I wanted in the first place. For the record, the last time PILAU appeared in the puzzle was 2002, and it didn't have a "to Brits" qualifier then either (it didn't even have "rice" in it => [Middle Eastern dish]). I think the puzzle has radically underestimated how many U.S. solvers will have heard or seen PILAU before. BUT THAT'S JUST ME! I could easily be wrong here. Your mileage may vary. Et + cetera. But I've spent a full paragraph talking about one square because honestly that is all that I remember well about this solve. There's lots of good stuff in the grid (see below), but this is a good example of how the lack of an alt-spelling qualifier in the clue took what could've been a "huh, interesting" moment and made it something far less pleasant. For future reference, please commit to memory all of the following spellings. You'll (maybe?) thank me later:

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Constructor: Jake Halperin

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: doubled letters — two-word answers that become self-descriptive when you double the first letter of the second word in the answer:

Theme answers:

• LONG-I ISLAND (17A: Wight, e.g.?) (i.e. "Wight" has a long "i" in it)
• HARD-C CANDIES (28A: Crunch bar and Cadbury Creme Egg, e.g.?) (i.e. "Crunch" and "Cadbury Creme" have hard "c"s)
• SILENT-M MOVIE (44A: 1995's "Johnny Mnemonic," e.g.?) (i.e. "Mnemonic" has a silent "m")
• CAPITAL-S SIN (59A: Sloth, e.g.?) (i.e. "Sin" has a capital "S")

Word of the Day: RENEE Montgomery (3D: ___ Montgomery, retired W.N.B.A. star) —

Renee Danielle Montgomery (born December 2, 1986) is a retired American basketball player and sports broadcaster who is currently vice president, part-owner, and investor of the Atlanta Dream, and one of three owners of the FCF Beasts Indoor Football Team. During her 11-year playing career in the Women's National Basketball Association, she won two championships with the Minnesota Lynx in 2015 and 2017. During her college playing career, she won a national championship with the UConn Huskies in 2009. In 2020, she married music artist Sirena Grace in Atlanta, Ga.[...] During the 2011 WNBA season, Montgomery had the best season of her career once she became the starting point guard for the [Connecticut] Sun. She averaged 14.6 ppg and was voted as an all-star for the first time in her career. [...] In 2017, Montgomery averaged 8.0 ppg and achieved a new career-high in field goal shooting percentage. Montgomery also started in 12 of 34 games played while Whalen was sidelined with a hand injury. The Lynx continued to be a championship contender in the league after making it to the Finals for the sixth time in seven seasons, setting up a rematch with the Sparks. This time the Lynx would win in 5 games, winning their fourth championship in seven seasons, tying the now-defunct Houston Comets for most championship titles. (wikipedia)

Well this is suitably weird. It's not the most consistent theme in the world, but it definitely gets points for creativity. I think the first three themers work great, but that last one really mucks things up (you generally want to reserve that final themer slot for your Best themer, not your worst one). First, I thought the Seven Deadly Sins were "cardinal," not "capital"—I actually don't know the term "capital sin" at all. Or, I do, but only by inference. I've probably seen it, but it feels off. A cardinal sin is "(in Christian tradition) any of the seven deadly sins" (google/Oxford Languages), and Sloth is one of those, so ... insert disappointed frowny face here. But even if you accept this "capital" business, this answer is already an outlier in a much more significant way, in that it is the only answer that refers not to a phonetic change but to a (mere) case change. All the other front parts of the themers refer directly to pronunciation; CAPITAL S has absolutely nothing to do with pronunciation. So on two fronts, it's weak and should never have made the team. I wonder if there are two-word phrases with "soft" or "short" letter options that would've worked. Think on that one yourselves. For now, I'll just say that I definitely enjoyed 75% of this theme. 

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Constructor: Rose Conlon

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: SIGN FOR DELIVERY (37A: Accept a package formally ... or a hint to 17-, 29-, 45- and 62-Across) — ordinary phrases that can also be understood as punny descriptions of different phases of childbirth, if you want them to be...

Theme answers:

• GUT FEELING (17A: Sneaking suspicion)
• THE KICKER (29A: An ironic punchline)
• BUMPY RIDE (45A: Rough flight)
• WATER BREAK (62A: Reason to pause a workout)

Word of the Day: "Salt Fat ACID Heat" (7D: "Salt Fat ___ Heat" (popular cookbook)) —

Salt Fat Acid Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking is a 2017 cookbook written by American chef Samin Nosrat and illustrated by Wendy MacNaughton. The book was designed by Alvaro Villanueva. It inspired the 2018 American four-part cooking docu-series Salt Fat Acid Heat. // A reference book, the cookbook is focused on teaching techniques and structured around the four titular elements: Salt, Fat, Acid, and Heat. The book explains what they are and how to master them in your cooking in order to become a better, more intuitive cook. Nosrat explains that these are the defining factors which determine the flavor and texture of food every time you cook, calling them the "cardinal directions" of cooking. The goal of the book is for readers to leave with a new cooking philosophy. [...] Nosrat started working on the book around 2009/2010 when Michael Pollan, an author and cooking student of hers, learned about her four-part system and encouraged her to write a book about it. She developed a curriculum based on the concept and taught many classes on it to develop the material. Throughout the process, Nosrat would note which concepts were easier to convey visually and started to design diagrams to help explain them. These also formed the foundation of diagrams in the book which give an overview, for example of sources of acid or salt.

I wonder if gender had anything to do with how long it took the average solver to figure out what the theme was supposed to be. It probably didn't take me that long, in terms of actual minutes spent, but I don't think I've spent "minutes" trying to figure out a Wednesday theme in a long time, if ever. Because there's such a thing as a "water sign" (Scorpio, for one) (but not Aquarius, weirdly), and the last themer starts with "water," I thought the "sign" in the revealer had something to do with the zodiac. At first. When that didn't pan out, I thought of street signs ("Bump!"), but no. And so on. I had to exhaust the "sign" angle and move over to alternate meanings of "delivery" before the "aha" *click* finally happened. This is a very cute concept; my brain was just very slow to pick up the gag. I'm not sure what phase of childbirth BUMPY RIDE is supposed to refer to ... Is the kid still kicking, or is the ride to the hospital (!?) supposed to be bumpy. Or is this a "baby bump" reference? And the kid is just "riding" ... in the "bump"? All of the above!? That part wasn't completely clear to me. But aside from the fact that I would never formally name the time it takes me to get a drink of water during a workout a WATER BREAK, these theme answers all seem fun and fresh, and the non-theme stuff is pretty strong overall. My first word was ÉTÉ followed shortly by EKE and DELINT and ECIG, and then (improbably) a reappearance of Monday's old-school crosswordese AKELA, so I was worried the puzzle was going to be a BUMPY RIDE indeed, but then things leveled off, i.e. the fill got better. It even got a bit flashy in the longer Downs (MANSPLAINS, URBAN CAVER). So I didn't enjoy feeling like an IDIOT for the 2 to 3 minutes it took me to understand what the hell was happening with the theme, but otherwise I liked this much more than I like most Wednesdays.

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Constructor: Jacob McDermott

Relative difficulty: Challenging
THEME: TUESDAY (36A: Calendar column ... or a punny hint to the circled squares) — Each circle has a TWO in it; together, the circles make this a TWOs day (or, Tuesday). Tuesday is also the second column in a workweek, and connecting the five circles forms a 2 – something that the online app does for the solver and that print solvers can imagine on their own.Theme answers:

• 13A: Near the North or South Pole, say (AT WORLD’S END) / 6D: Sign on a vintage appliance at a flea market, maybe (IT WORKS) 
• 21A: Well-trodden, as a path (FOOTWORN) / 3D: "American Gothic" artist (GRANT WOOD) 
• 22A: Communicated through channels (SENT WORD) / 14D: Lead-in to "Be happy" (DON’T WORRY) 
• 52A: "I'm speechless!" (JUST WOW) / 43D: Foster professional connections (NETWORK) 
• 54A: Bad, but better than the alternatives (LEAST WORST) / 41D: Home of the Texas Motor Speedway, with seating for more than 150,000 spectators (FORT WORTH)

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Constructor: Natalie Murphy

Relative difficulty: Challenging (***for a Monday***)

THEME: Presidents' Day — theme answers = phrases that have the same initials as US presidents (the number of the relevant president appears in parentheses at the end of each theme clue):

Theme answers:

• JUST FOR KICKS (JFK) (17A: On a whim [#35])
• LEVI'S BLUE JEANS (LBJ) (23A: Denim pants with a red tab label [#36]
• FAMILY DINING ROOM (FDR) (38A: Where domestic meals are enjoyed [#32])
• "HAVING SAID THAT ..." (HST) (48A: "On the other hand ..." [#33])
• GOING WAY BACK (GWB) (59A: In the distant past [#43])

Word of the Day: ZUMBA (11D: Dance-based fitness program) —

Zumba is a fitness program that involves cardio and Latin-inspired dance. It was founded by Colombian dancer and choreographer Beto Pérez in 2001, and by 2012, it called itself the largest international branded fitness program in the world. (wikipedia)

I had no idea ZUMBA still existed. Last I heard of it was sometime in 2012, I think. I had a friend who went to ZUMBA classes. Then she moved away and no one so much as mentioned ZUMBA to me ever again, in any context. I assumed it had gone the way of TAEBO (which, for all I know, is still all the rage ... somewhere). I do want to single out "I'M A FAN" (33A: "Love your work!") and especially "HI, HON" (48D: Spousal greeting) as fun little colloquial answers. I'm a fan of both. I wish more of the grid had that kind of personality. I had UNAPT (UGH, that non-word keeps haunting me) before UNFIT (26D: Not suitable, as for a job), and, most obstructive of all, I had A LONG WAY BACK before GOING WAY BACK (59A: In the distant past [#43]); that one Really felt right. Otherwise, not hard, just slowish for a Monday. Enjoy your day off if you've got one. Otherwise, just, you know, enjoy your day. See you tomorrow. Please enjoy this random outraged tweet.

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