Clothing ensembles, slangily / MON 3-18-24 / "Star Wars" droid, familiarly / Hotly contested area in a U.S. election / Unruly '60s hairdo / In Europe, it's known as a "twin town"

Constructor: Trent H. Evans

Relative difficulty: Medium (normal Monday)

THEME: moving to a bigger place ... — theme answers end with geographical areas of increasing size:

Theme answers:

• SISTER CITY (17A: In Europe, it's known as a "twin town")
• PURPLE STATE (29A: Hotly contested area in a U.S. election)
• HOST COUNTRY (45A: France, for the 2024 Olympics)
• ALIEN WORLD (60A: Extraterrestrial's home, to us)

Word of the Day: ABBIE Hoffman (1A: 1960s activist Hoffman) —

Abbot Howard Hoffman (November 30, 1936 – April 12, 1989) was an American political and social activist who co-founded the Youth International Party ("Yippies") and was a member of the Chicago Seven. He was also a leading proponent of the Flower Power movement.

As a member of the Chicago Seven, Hoffman was charged with and tried―for activities during the 1968 Democratic National Convention―for conspiring to use interstate commerce with intent to incite a riot and crossing state lines with the intent to incite a riot under the anti-riot provisions of Title X of the Civil Rights Act of 1968. Five of the Chicago Seven defendants, including Hoffman, were convicted of crossing state lines with intent to incite a riot; all of the convictions were vacated after an appeal and the U.S. Department of Justice declined to pursue another trial. Hoffman, along with all of the defendants and their attorneys were also convicted and sentenced for contempt of court by the judge; these convictions were also vacated after an appeal.

Hoffman continued his activism into the 1970s and remains an icon of the anti-Vietnam war movement and the counterculture era. He died by suicide with a phenobarbital overdose in 1989 at age 52. (wikipedia)

• • •

Well this is about as plain as it gets. Even says so, right in the middle of the grid: PLAIN. Totally rudimentary progression here. Might've been more interesting if the geographical areas had been more metaphorical, less on-the-nose. "FIST CITY," ALTERED STATE, COW COUNTRY, WALLEY WORLD, that sort of thing. But these are just literal cities, states, etc. Ho + hum. It'll do, but it doesn't do much. Not bad, just straightforward to the point of dullness. Basic. Could be better, but also could be worse. The thing that's actively annoying about today's puzzle is the fill, which is lazy and stale, especially in the east and southeast. Just cruddy from KRONA through ATT ASAP BAA down to ARTOO. Overfamiliar STYES, overfamiliar ALOE. It's a glut. Just no attempt at all to clean or spice things up. It's all gettable, no one's really gonna balk at anything down there, but the overall quality of the fill could and should be better. Constructors just don't put in the time to get it from "acceptable" to "good," and if the theme "works," the editors clearly only care that the fill reach "acceptable." So people come to accept mediocrity. If you cared about making the grid actively good, you'd tear out ALOHA PARTY (the weakest of the long answers, and the long answer to which the most weak short stuff is attached or adjacent) and rebuild. The "H" and "P" from ALOHA PARTY are kinda forcing you into ETHEL and ASAP, respectively, and the rest of the gunk pretty much falls into place from there. Therefore, aloha, ALOHA PARTY (which seems to be more of a welcome party than a farewell party, but ... I guess, like "aloha" itself, it can go both ways?) (32D: Farewell celebration for those leaving the Hawaiian Islands). 

This was on the easy side where Downs-only solving was concerned, but I got pretty significantly held up by a colorful long answer that, sadly, turned out to be a long wrong answer. I say "sadly" because I really liked my long answer, which was BUTTINSKIS (for BUSYBODIES) (3D: Meddling sorts). It's perfect for the clue, and like BUSYBODIES (as you can see) starts with a "BU-"! So once I inferred ABBIE from AB-IE and then ran the vowels at DRINK / DRANK / DRUNK, I caught sight of that "BU-" combo and though "aha, BUTTINSKIS! Good one!" But no. They were phantom BUTTINSKIS, alas. Those BUTTINSKIS kept me from seeing SISTER CITY for far too long. I was staring down SITTER-something, which seemed impossible. I thought maybe these were gonna be wacky wordplay theme answers, but once I got PURPLE STATE, I knew the theme answers were gonna be regular answers, which means I had an error. Really resisted pulling BUTTINSKIS because ... I mean, BUTTINSKIS, you can see how I'd be attached! But finally I pulled it, and that made all the difference. Rest of the puzzle was a comparative breeze.

I also had trouble with STYMIES (9D: Hinders), in part because I'd gone with POPTOP over MOPTOP. I knew that it *could* have been MOPTOP, but I figured it's Monday, the can opener answer is probably more likely than the vintage Beatles-esque answer. But no (22A: Unruly '60s hairdo). Also, in a Downs-only situation, ABE- could be either ABET or ABEL (theoretically it could also be ABED, or even ABES, but not when the last letter is preceded in the Down by an "S"). And FITS could've been FATS, so I ended up having to juggle what seemed like a lot of possibilities. But once "Y" was solidly set, and I reconsidered MOPTOP, STYMIES leapt into view. 

That clue on FITS is likely to be slightly baffling for some older solvers (26A: Clothing ensembles, slangily). I feel like "fit"'s currency (short for "outfit") is relatively recent. But maybe I'm wrong about that. Nobody said "fit" when I was young, is what I'm saying. "Fit check" is used on social media when someone wants to show off their outfit (or call attention to someone else's). Anyway, solving Downs-only, I never had to deal with that clue. Not much else to say about this one except ... I have questions about the "In Europe" part of 17A: In Europe, it's known as a "twin town" (SISTER CITY). First of all, "In Europe," they don't speak English, so on its face "twin town" seems dubious. Also, "In Europe" they speak A Lot Of Languages—does every country "In Europe" really call it a "twin town"? Google is telling me that Spain uses "ciudad hermanada," which is essentially "SISTER CITY," and since Spain is "In Europe," again, I dispute this clue. It seems generally true that "twin(ned) town" is the most common translation of the equivalent phrase in France and Germany, and possibly elsewhere, so there's no big foul here. I just like clue phrasing to be precise and accurate. Also, this puzzle is so PLAIN that there's not much to focus on, so I'm focusing on this. In the interest of not going further into the weeds, I bid you good day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. I'll be reminding you all week that These Puzzles Fund Abortion 4 is now available. Here is my description of the details (from this past Sunday's write-up):

These Puzzles Fund Abortion 4 (four!) just dropped this past week—over 20 original puzzles from top constructors and editors—and you can get the collection now (right now) for a minimum donation of $20 (donations split evenly among five different abortion funds—details here). You can check out a detailed description of the collection and a list of all the talent involved here. I not only guest-edited a puzzle, I also test-solved puzzles. I have now seen the finished collection, and it's really lovely, across the board. General editors Rachel Fabi and Brooke Husic and C.L. Rimkus put in a tremendous amount of work ensuring that it would be. The attention to detail—test-solving, fact-checking, etc.—was really impressive. Anyway, donate generously (assuming you are able) and enjoy the puzzle bounty!

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