1126-23 NY Times Crossword 26 Nov 23, Sunday

Constructed by: Adam Wagner & Michael Lieberman
Edited by: Will Shortz

Today’s Theme: Growth Spurts

Themed answers are common phrases that have had GROWTH SPURTS, an “INCH” added, in order to match the clue:

  • 3A Barbecue buffet offering? : ENDLESS LOIN CHOPS (endless loops + inch)
  • 7A Invent the sound of a cash register? : COIN CHA-CHING (coaching + inch)
  • 13A Yao Ming, before joining the N.B.A.? : BALLER IN CHINA (ballerina + inch)
  • 30A Peruvian road sign? : CHINCHILLA XING (chillaxing + inch)
  • 43A Reasons that South American furniture stores have super-long lines? : LATIN CHEST CRAZES (latest crazes + inch)
  • 58A Things like “What do we want?” “Headache relief!” “When do we want it?” “Now!”? : ASPIRIN CHANTS (aspirants + inch)
  • 67A Affectionate squeeze of an infant’s bottom? : BABY BUM PINCH (baby bump + inch)

Bill’s time: 19m 04s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

5 Heaven on earth, to the ancient Greeks : ARCADIA

Arcadia is a mountainous region of ancient Greece that was noted in times past for the innocence and contentment of its people who lived a simple, pastoral life. “Arcadia” has been used ever since as the name of a place offering peace and simplicity.

12 International pizza chain founded in Brooklyn : SBARRO

The Sbarro chain of pizza restaurants was founded by Italian immigrants, Gennaro and Carmela Sbarro.

18 Pipsqueak : RUNT

Back around 1500, a runt was an old or decayed tree stump, and by the early 1600s “runt” was being used to describe animals that were similarly old and decayed. Ultimately “runt” came to mean the smallest and often sickest in a litter.

20 Caps that lack brims : BEANIES

A beanie is a knitted, close-fitting hat with no brim. The name probably comes from the slang term “bean” meaning “head”.

21 Apt name for a Whirlpool salesman? : EDDY

Whirlpool is a manufacturer of home appliances that was founded as the Upton Machine Company in 1911.

29 Reptile with a big bite, informally : CROC

Crocodiles and alligators do indeed bear a resemblance to each other, although they belong to distinct biological families. One of the main ways used to distinguish them is by their teeth and jaws. Both the upper and lower sets of teeth of a crocodile are visible when its mouth is closed, whereas only the upper teeth of an alligator are visible with the mouth shut.

33 One of the seven in “Se7en” : SIN

The 1995 film “Seven” (often written as “Se7en”) is a crime thriller starring Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman as two detectives tasked with tracking down a serial killer. The bad guy (played by Kevin Spacey) engages in thematic murder, basing each killing on one of the seven deadly sins. Critics and audiences liked this one, but squirmed quite a bit as it is also pretty brutal.

34 Agcy. that oversees the Secret Service : DHS

Department of Homeland Security (DHS)

The Secret Service was created by President Abraham Lincoln in 1865, with the mission of fighting currency counterfeiters. The additional task of protecting the US President was added by Congress in 1902 following the assassination of President William McKinley in the prior year. Only one Secret Service agent has given his life in the course of an assassination attempt. That was Private Leslie Coffelt, who was killed when two Puerto Rican nationalists tried to assassinate President Harry S. Truman in 1950 while he was residing in Blair House.

46 Musician Parks or Guthrie : ARLO

“Arlo Parks” is the stage name of British singer and poet Anaïs Marinho. Parks seems to have hit the big time early in her career, with her first studio album “Collapsed in Sunbeams” (2021) garnering a lot of positive attention.

Arlo Guthrie is the son of Woody Guthrie. Both father and son are renowned for singing protest songs about social injustice. Arlo is most famous for his epic “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree”, a song that lasts a full 18m 34s. In the song Guthrie tells how, after being drafted, he was rejected for service in the Vietnam War based on his criminal record. He had only one incident on his public record, a Thanksgiving Day arrest for littering and being a public nuisance when he was 18-years-old.

47 ___ cit. (footnote abbr.) : LOC

“Loc. cit”. is short for “loco citato” meaning “in the place cited”. Loc. cit. is used in a footnote instead of op. cit. as it refers not only to a prior work, but also to the same page in that work.

50 Lake on the Malawi/Mozambique border : NYASA

Lake Nyasa is a large lake in Africa that is located between Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania. The lake is still known by the name “Nyasa” in Tanzania, although it is now referred to as “Lake Malawi” in Malawi, and “Lake Niassa” in Mozambique.

51 Subatomic particle : MUON

A muon is a subatomic particle that is similar to an electron but very unstable. A muon has a mean lifetime of only 2.2 microseconds.

54 Campus military grp. : ROTC

The Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) is a training program for officers based in colleges all around the US. The ROTC program was established in 1862 when as a condition of receiving a land-grant to create colleges, the federal government required that military tactics be part of a new school’s curriculum.

57 “Monday Night Football With Peyton & ___” : ELI

“Monday Night Football with Peyton and Eli”, also known as “Manningcast”, is an alternate, live broadcast of Monday Night Football hosted by brothers Peyton and Eli Manning. It is produced by Peyton’s production company Omaha Productions. And airs on ESPN2 and ESPN+. The show premiered in 2021, and In its first season averaged 1.1 million viewers, which was more than double the viewership of the traditional Monday Night Football broadcast on ABC. The Manningcast was also the most-watched program on ESPN+ in its first season.

61 Showy flowers native to Mexico : DAHLIAS

The dahlia is a flowering plant native to Mexico and Central America. It was named the national flower of Mexico relatively recently, in 1963. The plant was given the name “dahlia” in 1791, in honor of Swedish botanist Anders Dahl.

65 Political org. with a quadrennial convention : DNC

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) was set up way back in 1848 to govern the day-to-day affairs of the Democratic Party. Past chairpersons of the DNC include Howard Dean from Vermont, Chris Dodd from Connecticut and Tim Kaine from Virginia.

66 Website with info about the stars : IMDB

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) website was launched in 1990, and is now owned by Amazon.com. It’s a great site for answering questions one has about movies and actors.

71 “Top Chef” judge Simmons : GAIL

Gail Simmons is a Toronto-born food writer who has been a judge on the cooking show “Top Chef” since it first aired in 2006. In 2012, she had a memoir published with the interesting title “Talking With My Mouth Full: My Life as a Professional Eater”.

75 Classic name in wafers : NECCO

Necco Wafers were the best-known product line of the candy manufacturer called the New England Confectionery Company. The firm’s name was abbreviated to “NECCO”, an acronym that became synonymous with the wafers.

78 One who doesn’t have a prayer? : ATHEIST

The term “atheism”, meaning “disbelief in the existence of a god or gods”, comes from the Greek “atheos” meaning “without god”.

81 Producer of sketches, in brief : SNL

“Saturday Night Live” (SNL)

82 Addis ___ : ABABA

Addis Ababa, which means “new flower” in Amharic, is the capital city of Ethiopia and one of the highest capital cities in the world, situated at an altitude of 2,400 meters above sea level. It is also home to the African Union, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, and other international organizations.

85 “Yellowjackets” network, for short : SHO

“Yellowjackets” sounds like an interesting TV show. It is about four teenage girls who survive a plane crash, and have to live for nineteenth months alone in the Canadian wilderness. While this story unfolds in the show, we also track their lives as adults, 25 years later.

90 Where the proverbial buck stops : HERE

The phrase “passing the buck” supposedly comes from poker. The marker that indicates whose turn it is to deal is called the buck, and it is passed from player to player. Over time, the phrase came to mean the passing of responsibility (or usually blame). President Harry S. Truman popularized the derivative phrase “the buck stops here” by placing a sign bearing those words on his desk in the Oval Office. President Truman had received the sign as a gift from a prison warden who was also an enthusiastic poker player.

91 Actress Hedren : TIPPI

Tippi Hedren is an actress from New Ulm, Minnesota who is best known for her starring roles in two Alfred Hitchcock classics: “The Birds” (1963) and “Marnie” (1964). Famously, Hedren claimed that Hitchcock destroyed her movie career because she would not succumb to his sexual advances, a charge that has been denied. Hedren’s daughter is actress Melanie Griffith.

93 Mississippi city in a Neil Simon title : BILOXI

Neil Simon was one of my favorite playwrights. He wrote over thirty plays and about thirty screenplays. My favorite play penned by Simon has to be “Brighton Beach Memoirs”, but the list of his great stage works seems endless and includes “Barefoot in the Park”, “The Odd Couple”, “Sweet Charity”, “Plaza Suite”, “California Suite”, “Biloxi Blues” and “The Goodbye Girl”.

95 Marathoner’s wear : BIB

The marathon commemorates the legendary messenger-run by Pheidippides from the site of the Battle of Marathon back to Athens, and is run over 26 miles and 385 yards. The first modern Olympic marathon races were run over a distance that approximated the length of the modern-day Marathon-Athens highway, although the actual length of the race varied from games to games. For the 1908 Olympics in London, a course starting at Windsor Castle and ending in front of the Royal Box at White City Stadium was defined. That course was 26 miles and 385 yards, the standard length now used at all Olympic Games. Organizers of subsequent games continued to vary the length of the race, until a decision was made in 1921 to adopt the distance used in London in 1908.

96 World capital near the 60th parallel : OSLO

The Norwegian capital of Oslo is located at the northern end of a fjord known as Oslofjord. The fjord is home to 40 islands that lie within the city’s limits. Oslo also has 343 lakes.

100 Football rival of the Brigham Young Cougars : UTAH UTES

The Utah Utes are the athletic teams of the University of Utah.

109 Most mountainous Caribbean nation : HAITI

The Republic of Haiti occupies the smaller, western portion of the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean. The rest of the island is taken up by the Dominican Republic. Haiti is one of only two nations in the Americas to have French as an official language, the other being Canada.

120 Ones catching waves? : ANTENNAS

An antenna’s job is to convert electrical power into radio waves, and radio waves into an electrical signal. The first antennas were built by the German physicist Heinrich Hertz in 1888.

123 Poet Pound : EZRA

Ezra Pound was an American poet who spent much of his life wandering the world, and spending years in London, Paris, and Italy. In Italy, Pound’s work and sympathies for Mussolini’s regime led to his arrest at the end of the war. His major work was the epic, albeit incomplete, “The Cantos”. This epic poem is divided into 120 sections, each known as a canto.

124 Behind : KEISTER

Back in the early 1900s, a keister was a safe or a strongbox. It has been suggested that “keister” was then used as slang by pickpockets for the rear trouser pocket in which one might keep a wallet. From this usage, “keister” appeared as a slang term for the buttocks in the early 1930s.

126 Hurl with gusto, in Gen Z slang : YEET

In contemporary slang, to yeet is to throw away, discard. “To yeet” usually implies the use of force and a general disregard for what is being discarded. As in, “I really want to yeet the word ‘yeet’ …”

127 One of a record-setting 3,234 for Sue Bird : ASSIST

WNBA player Sue Bird is one of only two basketball players, male or female, to have won five Olympic gold medals. The other is fellow WNBA star Diana Taurasi. Bird became engaged to US soccer phenom Megan Rapinoe in 2020.

129 Some old jets, for short : SSTS

The most famous supersonic transport (SST) is the retired Concorde. The Concorde routinely broke the sound barrier, and cruised at about twice the speed of sound. Above Mach 2, frictional heat would cause the plane’s aluminum airframe to soften, so airspeed was limited.

Down

2 “Autumn Song” poet : AUDEN

Noted poet W. H. Auden was born and raised in England, but eventually became a US citizen. As well as hundreds of poems, Auden also wrote librettos for operas, including Igor Stravinsky’s “The Rake’s Progress”.

4 Princess Di or Prince, once : STYLE ICON

Just after Diana, Princess of Wales died in a car accident, then Prime Minister Tony Blair addressed the nation. In so doing, he described her as “the People’s Princess”. That description resonated with many, and is still used today when referring to “Lady Di”.

Singer Prince was born in Minneapolis, and he lived there most of his life. Born Prince Rogers Nelson, his given name honored his father, a jazz musician who used the stage name Prince Rogers. Starting in 1993, he changed his stage name (adopting an unpronounceable symbol) and was often referred to as “The Artist Formerly Known as Prince” (TAFKAP). He died in 2016 due to an accidental fentanyl overdose at his home and recording studio located just southwest of Minneapolis. The home and studio, known as Paisley Park, is now a museum that is open to the public.

5 In check : AT BAY

Our use of the phrase “at bay”, to mean “in check”, derives from the older expression “at abai” used to describe a hunted animal “unable to escape”.

8 Fall blooms : ASTERS

Apparently, most aster species and cultivars bloom relatively late in the year, usually in the fall. The name “aster” comes into English via Latin from the Greek word “astéri” meaning “star”, a reference to the arrangement of the petals of the flower.

9 1982 Stevie Wonder hit : DO I DO

The great musician Stevie Wonder signed on with Motown Records when he was just 11-years-old. He has been remarkably loyal to the label and is still recording with Motown some 50 years later. The level of Stevie Wonder’s success is illustrated by his 22 Grammy Awards, the most Grammys awarded to a male solo artist. Wonder was born 6 weeks prematurely, and incomplete development of blood vessels in his eyes caused the retinas to detach leaving him blind soon after birth. His mother, Lula Mae Hardaway, co-wrote many of Stevie’s songs when he was a teenager, including “I Was Made to Love Her”, “Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours” and “I Don’t Know Why I Love You”.

11 Home services website : ANGI

Angie’s List is a website used by consumers to rate and research local businesses. The “list” was founded in 1995, originally as a call-in service and publication with reviews, by William S. Oesterle and the eponymous Angie Hicks. Angie’s List moved to the Internet in 1996, and by 2013 had 70,000 subscribers. A rebranding exercise in 2021 resulted in Angie’s List becoming “ANGI”.

13 Yao Ming, before joining the N.B.A.? : BALLER IN CHINA (ballerina + inch)

Yao Ming is a retired professional basketball player from Shanghai who played for the Houston Rockets. At 7’6″, Yao was the tallest man playing in the NBA. He has a cute nickname: “the Ming Dynasty”.

14 Actress Taylor-Joy : ANYA

Actress Anya Taylor-Joy had quite the international upbringing. She was born in Miami, and raised in Buenos Aires and then London. She is perhaps best known for playing the title character in the 2020 film adaptation of Jane Austen’s “Emma”, and the lead role in the Netflix miniseries “The Queen’s Gambit”.

17 Big kitchen brand : OSTER

The Oster brand of small appliances was introduced in 1924 by John Oster. He started out by making manually-powered hair clippers designed for cutting women’s hair, and followed up with a motorized version in 1928. The clippers kept the company in business until 1946 when Oster diversified, buying a manufacturer of liquefying blenders in 1946. The blender was renamed to “Osterizer” and was a big hit. Oster was bought by Sunbeam, which has owned the brand since 1960.

25 Toymaker Rubik : ERNO

What was originally called the “Magic Cube” became better known as “Rubik’s Cube”, and was named for its inventor Ernő Rubik. Rubik’s Cube is the world’s biggest selling puzzle game, with over 350 million sold in just over 30 years.

27 Language that gave us “mulligatawny” and “patchouli” : TAMIL

Mulligatawny is a thick soup spiced with curry powder and nutmeg. It is an English recipe that was developed in India during the days of the Raj. The name “mulligatawny” comes from the Tamil word for “pepper water”.

Patchouli is a bushy herb in the mint family that has a heavy, strong scent. The essential oil from patchouli is used in incense, insect repellants and some alternative medicines. The plant’s name comes from a Tamil word meaning “green leaf”.

Tamils are a large ethnic group of almost 80 million people who speak Tamil as their mother tongue. Despite the large Tamil population, there is no Tamil state. The highest concentration of Tamils is in Sri Lanka, where they make up about 25% of the population.

30 Peruvian road sign? : CHINCHILLA XING (chillaxing + inch)

A chinchilla is a rodent found in the Andes in South America. It is a little larger than a squirrel, and has velvet-like fur. It takes its name from the local Chincha people who made clothing out of the fur. Chinchillas are quite rare in the wild now as they have been hunted almost out of existence, but there are plenty of farm-raised chinchillas around supporting the fur industry, sad to say …

Pedestrian crossing (Ped Xing)

36 English philosopher William of ___ : OCKHAM

Ockham’s (also “Occam’s”) razor is a principle in philosophy and science that basically states that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. This explanation is a corollary to the more exact statement of the principle, that one shouldn’t needlessly use assumptions in explaining something. The principle is referred to as “lex parsimoniae” in Latin, or “the law of parsimony”. Parsimony is being thrifty with money or resources. The principle was developed by 14th-century logician and Franciscan Friar William of Ockham (or “Occam” in Latin). The principle is dubbed a “razor” as it is used as a philosophical tool used to cut out absurd and spurious reasoning in an argument.

38 Shirley Bassey and Agatha Christie, for two : DAMES

Shirley Bassey is a much-respected singer from Wales. Here in the US, Bassey is probably best known as the singer of three of the James Bond film theme songs: “Goldfinger”, “Diamonds Are Forever” and “Moonraker”. She is the only artist to have recorded more than one Bond theme song.

Agatha Christie (née Miller) is the best-selling novelist of all time, having sold about 4 billion copies worldwide in total. The only books to have sold in higher volume are the works of William Shakespeare and the Bible.

41 Midback muscle : LAT

The muscles known as the “lats” are the “latissimi dorsi”, and are the broadest muscles in the back. “Latissimus” is Latin for “broadest”, and “dorsum” is Latin for “back”.

44 Org. concerned with plant-based well-being? : OSHA

Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)

53 Historic quinoa cultivators : INCAS

The Inca people emerged as a tribe around the 12th century, in what today is southern Peru. The Incas developed a vast empire over the next 300 years, extending along most of the western side of South America. The Empire fell to the Spanish, finally dissolving in 1572 with the execution of Túpac Amaru, the last Incan Emperor.

55 Amount owed : TAB

When we run a “tab” at a bar, we are running a “tabulation”, a listing of what we owe. Such a use of “tab” is American slang that originated in the 1880s.

58 Things like “What do we want?” “Headache relief!” “When do we want it?” “Now!”? : ASPIRIN CHANTS (aspirants + inch)

“Aspirin” used to be a brand name for the drug acetylsalicylic acid. Aspirin was introduced by the German drug company Bayer AG in the late 1800s. As part of the war reparations paid by Germany after WWI, Bayer AG lost the use of the trademark “Aspirin” (as well as the trademark Heroin!) and it became a generic term.

62 California congresswoman Barbara : LEE

Barbara Lee first represented a California district in the US House in 1998. One of Lee’s more infamous votes was in 2001, when she was the only member of Congress to vote against the Authorization for Use of Military Force after the September 11th attacks on the US. Lee’s argument was that powers granted the US president were overly broad.

64 Fawn’s mother : DOE

A fawn is a young deer, usually one less than a year old.

74 Setting for many Gauguin works : TAHITI

Paul Gauguin was a French artist in the Post-Impressionist period. Gauguin was a great friend of Vincent van Gogh, and indeed was staying with him in Arles when van Gogh famously cut off his own ear. Equally famously, Gauguin “fled” to Tahiti in 1891 to escape the conventions of European life. He painted some of his most celebrated works on the island. After ten years living in Tahiti, Gauguin relocated to the Marquesas Islands, where he passed away in 1903.

83 Bubble tea : BOBA

Bubble tea, sometimes called “boba tea”, is a tea-based drink from Taiwan. The “bubbles” are chewy tapioca balls that are usually added to the drink.

87 Things that kids are encouraged to break : PINATAS

Piñatas originated in Mexico, probably among the Aztecs or Mayans. Today’s piñatas are usually made from cardboard that is brightly decorated with papier-mâché. Traditionally a piñata was made out of a clay pot, adorned with feathers and ribbons and filled with small treasures. During religious ceremonies the clay pots would be suspended and broken open so that the contents would spill out onto the ground at the feet of a god as an offering.

92 Polynesian food : POI

I am a big fan of starch (being an Irishman I love potatoes). That said, I think that poi tastes horrible! Poi is made from the bulbous tubers (corm) of the taro plant by cooking the corm in water and mashing it until the desired consistency is achieved.

101 Nickname for a muscly Disney protagonist : HERC

“Hercules” is a 1997 Disney animated film about the Greek hero of mythology. In Greek mythology, the hero’s name is “Heracles”, but the movie went with the Roman version “Hercules”.

103 Plucked instrument : SITAR

The sitar has been around since the Middle Ages. It is a stringed instrument that is played by plucking, and is used most often in Hindustani classical music. In the West we have been exposed to the instrument largely through the performances of Ravi Shankar and some music by George Harrison of the Beatles, a onetime student of Shankar.

104 Start of a famous Kennedy quote : ASK NOT …

“Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country” is a passage from the famous inaugural address delivered by President John F. Kennedy (JFK) in January 1961. Although it is generally regarded as one of the best inaugural addresses, it is the fourth shortest, taking just 13m 59s to deliver from start to finish.

106 Tennis’s Naomi : OSAKA

Naomi Osaka is a Japanese-born tennis professional who became the first Asian player to be ranked number-one in singles. She was also the first ever tennis player to light the Olympic cauldron during an opening ceremony, doing so for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

111 Yoga pose : ASANA

“Asana” is a Sanskrit word that translates literally as “sitting down”. The asanas are the poses that a practitioner of yoga assumes. The most famous is the lotus position, the cross-legged pose called “padmasana”.

113 Everglades wader : EGRET

Egrets are a group of several species of white herons. Many egret species were faced with extinction in the 1800s and early 1900s due to plume hunting, a practice driven by the demand for egret plumes that could be incorporated into hats.

The Everglades are tropical wetlands that cover much of southern Florida. The area was named “River Glades” by a British surveyor in 1773, and it is suggested that poor transcription of the word “river” led to the use of “ever”. The southern 20% of the Everglades is a protected region that we know as Everglades National Park. The park is the third-largest National Park in the lower 48 states, after Death Valley NP (the largest) and Yellowstone NP.

114 Pew, pew, pew! : SEATS

A pew is a church bench, usually one with a high back. The original pews were raised and sometimes enclosed seats in the church used by women and important men or families. “Pew” comes from the Old French “puie” meaning “balcony, elevation”.

116 Comedian Lydic of “The Daily Show” : DESI

Comedian and actress Desi Lydic is perhaps best known as a correspondent on “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah”, a gig that she signed up for in 2015.

117 Virtual replications, for short : SIMS

SimCity is a very clever computer game. Players build and grow cities and societies by creating the conditions necessary for people (the Sims) to move in and thrive. SimCity was launched in 1989, and to this day it is consistently ranked as one of the greatest computer games of all time.

Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1 Sweeties : BAES
5 Heaven on earth, to the ancient Greeks : ARCADIA
12 International pizza chain founded in Brooklyn : SBARRO
18 Pipsqueak : RUNT
19 “We’re not ready to joke about this yet?” : TOO SOON?
20 Caps that lack brims : BEANIES
21 Apt name for a Whirlpool salesman? : EDDY
22 Trying to get a rise out of : BAITING
23 Gut : BELLY FAT
24 Deserved : WELL-EARNED
26 “Don’t believe one word of that!” : IT’S ALL A LIE
28 Visibly scornful : SNEERY
29 Reptile with a big bite, informally : CROC
31 Surprise and delight : AMUSE
32 Slip up : ERR
33 One of the seven in “Se7en” : SIN
34 Agcy. that oversees the Secret Service : DHS
35 One’s natural habitat : HOME TURF
38 Sequin-covered undergarment popularized by Lady Gaga : DISCO BRA
41 Permitted : LICIT
42 Place to rest your head : PILLOW
46 Musician Parks or Guthrie : ARLO
47 ___ cit. (footnote abbr.) : LOC
48 They’re just over two feet : ANKLES
50 Lake on the Malawi/Mozambique border : NYASA
51 Subatomic particle : MUON
52 Release, as a trailer : UNHITCH
54 Campus military grp. : ROTC
56 “Your” of yore : THY
57 “Monday Night Football With Peyton & ___” : ELI
58 “The results ___ …” : ARE IN
59 Japanese “yes” : HAI
61 Showy flowers native to Mexico : DAHLIAS
63 Thrills : SENDS
65 Political org. with a quadrennial convention : DNC
66 Website with info about the stars : IMDB
68 Well, in both French and Spanish : BIEN
69 Get by : COPE
71 “Top Chef” judge Simmons : GAIL
73 Bother, with “at” : EAT …
75 Classic name in wafers : NECCO
78 One who doesn’t have a prayer? : ATHEIST
81 Producer of sketches, in brief : SNL
82 Addis ___ : ABABA
84 When doubled, fake laugh : HAR
85 “Yellowjackets” network, for short : SHO
86 Subscribe again : RE-UP
88 Fox hunting shout : TALLYHO!
90 Where the proverbial buck stops : HERE
91 Actress Hedren : TIPPI
93 Mississippi city in a Neil Simon title : BILOXI
95 Marathoner’s wear : BIB
96 World capital near the 60th parallel : OSLO
97 How a Broadway star might break out : IN SONG
99 What a stiffed server receives : NO TIP
100 Football rival of the Brigham Young Cougars : UTAH UTES
102 20-sided shape : ICOSAGON
104 Question of introspection : AM I?
105 Upper-left keyboard key : ESC
106 Fertility lab supply : OVA
109 Most mountainous Caribbean nation : HAITI
110 Cry of faux-surprise : GASP
112 French brothers : FRERES
115 Reasons to wear socks post-vacation : SANDAL TANS
118 Resort offering that might include a lift ticket : SKI PACKAGE
120 Ones catching waves? : ANTENNAS
121 “Impossible!” : I CANNOT!
123 Poet Pound : EZRA
124 Behind : KEISTER
125 One might improve a pupil’s performance : MONOCLE
126 Hurl with gusto, in Gen Z slang : YEET
127 One of a record-setting 3,234 for Sue Bird : ASSIST
128 Wraps up in fabric : SWATHES
129 Some old jets, for short : SSTS

Down

1 Pub orders : BREWS
2 “Autumn Song” poet : AUDEN
3 Barbecue buffet offering? : ENDLESS LOIN CHOPS (endless loops + inch)
4 Princess Di or Prince, once : STYLE ICON
5 In check : AT BAY
6 Sound from a den : ROAR
7 Invent the sound of a cash register? : COIN CHA-CHING (coaching + inch)
8 Fall blooms : ASTERS
9 1982 Stevie Wonder hit : DO I DO
10 It’s never free of charge : ION
11 Home services website : ANGI
12 Fully divests one’s stake : SELLS UP
13 Yao Ming, before joining the N.B.A.? : BALLER IN CHINA (ballerina + inch)
14 Actress Taylor-Joy : ANYA
15 Search (through) : RIFLE
16 Show again : RE-AIR
17 Big kitchen brand : OSTER
20 Doozy : BEAUT
23 Detector of nonsense, informally : BS METER
25 Toymaker Rubik : ERNO
27 Language that gave us “mulligatawny” and “patchouli” : TAMIL
30 Peruvian road sign? : CHINCHILLA XING (chillaxing + inch)
34 Spoke monotonously : DRONED
36 English philosopher William of ___ : OCKHAM
37 Go by air : FLY
38 Shirley Bassey and Agatha Christie, for two : DAMES
39 Gloater’s words : I RULE!
40 Photo editing option : BLUR
41 Midback muscle : LAT
43 Reasons that South American furniture stores have super-long lines? : LATIN CHEST CRAZES (latest crazes + inch)
44 Org. concerned with plant-based well-being? : OSHA
45 Methods : WAYS
49 Nursery purchase : SOD
53 Historic quinoa cultivators : INCAS
55 Amount owed : TAB
58 Things like “What do we want?” “Headache relief!” “When do we want it?” “Now!”? : ASPIRIN CHANTS (aspirants + inch)
60 Best-case : IDEAL
62 California congresswoman Barbara : LEE
64 Fawn’s mother : DOE
67 Affectionate squeeze of an infant’s bottom? : BABY BUM PINCH (baby bump + inch)
70 Language suffix : -ESE
72 Altogether : IN TOTO
74 Setting for many Gauguin works : TAHITI
76 The ___ Honors (annual picture book awards) : CARLE
77 Black-and-white cookies : OREOS
78 Italian wine region : ASTI
79 Flimsy : THIN
80 Where you might get into hot water : TUB
83 Bubble tea : BOBA
87 Things that kids are encouraged to break : PINATAS
89 Sass : LIP
90 Items exchanged when a relationship gets serious : HOUSE KEYS
92 Polynesian food : POI
94 Access an account : LOG IN
98 Bit of soccer or hockey equipment : GOAL NET
101 Nickname for a muscly Disney protagonist : HERC
103 Plucked instrument : SITAR
104 Start of a famous Kennedy quote : ASK NOT …
106 Tennis’s Naomi : OSAKA
107 Roof toppers : VANES
108 The opposition : ANTIS
111 Yoga pose : ASANA
112 Destinies : FATES
113 Everglades wader : EGRET
114 Pew, pew, pew! : SEATS
116 Comedian Lydic of “The Daily Show” : DESI
117 Virtual replications, for short : SIMS
119 North or south end : POLE
122 One might be spotted on a farm : COW