Friday, Feb 27th, 2026 ~ Sara Muchnick & Doug Peterson

 CROSS [ I ] EYED

Iron Maiden's Cross-Eyed Mary cover - I grew up with these guys,

but if you prefer the Jethro Tull orignal . . .

This is the second LA Times collaboration between Sara & Doug; Moe had the other one two years ago.  Mr. Peterson is a regular, and I found this link to a crossword blog from Sara - I like the phrase she used to 'celebrate' her first published NYT puzzle.  We have a "sort-of" visual theme to the puzzle, as the sans serif font of the LA Times crossword makes a capital "I" look like a vertical line; when rotated, or "rolled", it becomes a hyphen.  Took me a bit to suss, but once "EYE" did, "EYE" smiled - a fresh, thought[ I ]provoking theme -AND - there are NO other wandering "I"s in the entire frame.  Well done, constructors~!  A standard grid, a handful of names, no circles, a balance of twenty 3LWs, and, having added in the "I"s, the 'straight definition' themers become unique;

17. *Inlay material, often: MOTHER [ I ] OF [ I ] PEARL - mother-of-pearl

28. *Not cooped up: FREE [ I ] RANGE - free-range

49. *Flexible: OPEN [ I ] ENDED - open-ended

61. *Lightheaded ones?: JACK [ I ] O' [ I ] LANTERNS - jack-o'-lanterns

37. Silent display of skepticism, or a phonetic hint for making sense of the answers to the starred clues: EYE ROLL - that is, one takes the "I"s in the themers and "rolls" them 90° ( either clockwise or counterclockwise, it works the same 🙄), and now they make sense~!

But Wate, There's More ~!

ACROSS:

1. After-dinner drink: DECAF - Oh, coffee; "EYE" went straight to alcohol 😜  A rolled-eye [ I ] Easter Egg in the clue, too~!

6. Players who may have to start over many times: NOOBS - short for 'Newbies', one who is unfamiliar with whatever they're involved in; here's my Revit T-shirt ( it's a drafting inside joke )

BIM = Building Information Modeling - essentially 3D CAD

11. Cannabis compound: THC - TetraHydroCannabinol - what gives the "buzz/high" of smokin' the (Cross-eyed) mary jane, weed, ganja, pot, herb, grass, dank, chronic, etc.

14. Tickle: AMUSE -  some of the slang for marijuana does tickle me

15. Home of the first jet bridge: O'HARE - EYE love clues/answers where EYE learn something new

16. Peach or plum: HUE - it was fruitless trying to fit FRUIT 🙄

20. Opposite of very: A TAD - Atwurd

21. "iZombie" setting: SEATTLE - no clue, but perps gave me all but the two "E"s

Never heard of this bizarre [ I ] but intriguing [ I ] concept for a show

22. Lip __: BALM

25. "The Phoenician Scheme" director Anderson: WES - name #1; more from IMDb

27. Surgical tool: LASER

32. Boris Johnson, for one: TORY - no ( British ) politics at the Corner~! Name(ish)

33. Keeps (off): FENDS

34. Treats embossed with flowers, dots, and dashes: OREOs - well, it's not just one OREO today

36. Blue: SAD - another color con clue 

40. Cash back?: COW - "Cash Cow"

Dunk your Oreos in your cash cow "output" 🙄

43. Leavening agent: YEAST

44. Lorna of literature: DOONE - NOT the cookies; name #2

46. Typical choice: GO-TO - e.g., when EYE get Chinese, my "go-to" choice is General Tso's Chicken

52. Totally believed: ATE UP - believe it - EYE "ate up" my egg roll, too 🙄 ( and a Thusday dupe )

54. Rx writer: DOC

55. Price points: TAGS

56. Moseys: STROLLS

59. "Poppycock!": "TOSH~!"

66. Short-horned bighorn: EWE - Another rolled-eye [ I ] Easter Egg in the clue, plus a change-up from the "ewe"sual 🙄

More from the San Diego zoo

67. Key in: ENTER

68. Acrobat's platform: ADOBE - oh so very clever; not a performing acrobat - Adobe Acrobat - the PDF managing software; EYE was stumped for a while

69. "¿Qué __?": Spanish greeting: "TAL~?" - Español, which filled via perps, but still doesn't look right; the literal translation is "¿~What [is] such~?"

70. Run-down: SEEDY - rolled-eye [ I ] Easter Egg in the clue

71. Rub it in: GLOAT - EYE did not have to reach out to the other Corner bloggers for help with an explanation of the theme; EYE figured it out all by mEYEself~! 😁 🙄

DOWN:

1. Reservoir creator: DAM - a dam good way to start the Down clues 🙄

2. Punk subculture: EMO - three-letter "music" genre~? = EMO

3. Share of the profit: CUT - members of Ocean's Eleven got an even cut of . . .

"My advice to you is this [ I ] run and hide"

4. Fearing disgrace: ASHAMED - slighly meh; feeling seems to work better

5. Stanza units: FEET - LINES and IAMBS were just inches too long . . . 🙄

6. "Ask someone else": "NO IDEA." - what do you call a blind Bambi~?  no "EYE" deer 🙄

7. Exultant cry: "O-HO~!"

8. Bumblers: OAFS

9. "The Marvels" star Larson: BRIE - the EYE in her name was my one error; EYE had BREE, ergo, did not get my "ta-DA~!".  It took a while to find my mistake; once I grasped the theme and changed the vowel - "O-HO~!" name #3

Got started in acting at six years old - her EYEMDb 🙄

10. Floral leaf: SEPAL - had this one two weeks ago

11. "For real?": "THAT SO~?"

12. Starter, e.g.: HURLER - baseball reference; one of the team's pitchers

13. Sticks in the refrigerator: CELERY - Ah.  Not BUTTER

18. Cutesy growl: "RAWR~!" - this is becoming acceptable, I guess

19. Divisions d'une nation: ETATS - Franwche for states ( of the nation )

22. Pair sharing halves of a heart charm, informally: BFFs - Best Friends Forever

23. Environs: AREA

24. Furnish temporarily: LEND - I had LOAN, which is {teeth-suck} close, but 50% wrong

Close, but, definitely wrong

26. Expressed contempt: SNORTED

29. "10-4": "I SEE." - eh, a bit meh, but a rolled eye [ I ] in the clue again

30. Miracle-__: GRO - another rolled-eye [ I ] Easter Egg clue; EYE ordered new house plants through Amazon; they sat on my cold February porch for a few hours - but it looks like they'll be OK . . .

They came with this packet - is it plant food~?  No labels or instructions on the thing

31. Serpentine creature: EEL - ASP would work, too

35. Ye __ Shoppe: OLDE

38. NBA legend Ming: YAO - name #4, crossword staple

39. Predict-ability?: ESP - Har-har; ExtraSensory Perception - another rolled-eye [ I ] in the clue

40. Musical conclusion: CODA - and Led Zeppelin's "last" studio album

Bonzo's Montreaux

Jimmy Page's "trick" to get the steel drum sound

41. Earth's pull, for short: ONE G - one (unit) of gravity

42. Settles down, in a way: WEDS - I used to blog WEDs

43. "Just checking in": "YOU OK~?"

45. Discreetly, in slang: ON THE DL - the "Down Low" - not a unique fill

46. Chemistry lab fixture: GAS JET - "HAL" doesn't like this; EYE kept getting GAS KET suggestions

"I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do jet"

47. National Gallery of Canada locale: OTTAWA - nailed it, but six-letters Canada~?

48. Old Toyota subcompact: TERCEL - had it, took it out; crossing 'go-to' eluded me at first

My buddy Mark in Florida called his the "turbo Tercel"

50. Public figure?: NOTARY - that person at the bank, e.g., that can attest to your signature

51. Symbol: ICON - Dah~! Not RUNE

53. Works at, as a trade: PLIES

57. Solitary: LONE

58. Venue: SITE

60. __ beetle: STAG - EYE am not posting a picture of this insect 😝

62. Took charge: LED - Zeppelin - no, wait . . . we had that already 🙄

63. Joey of fiction: ROO - Winnie the Pooh, and Kanga's "Roo"

64. "Space Jam" org.: NBA - Not a basketball fan, but I did know this

65. Fully taken care of: SET - win the lotto, and you're "SET" for life~!

Splynter

Spent a few minutes looking for my error

Grid Flow a very low 17.4