Nonmedical childbirth assistant / WED 9-23-26 / Jay's reticent partner of filmdom / Carnival diversion requiring precision / Music genre named for its voluminous dos / Instrument also called the "sprightly companion" / Brand acquired by Hasbro / Super Mario character with a mushroom for a head

Constructor: Dana Edwards

Relative difficulty: Easy

[3D: "Star Wars" series starring Diego Luna]

THEME: "THAT'S FAIR GAME" (55A: "You're free to criticize it" ... or a comment one might make about 20-, 34- and 41-Across?) — familiar answers that involve "fair" and "game" in different ways:

Theme answers:

• SPORTSMANSHIP (20A: Honorable conduct on the field)
• OPEN SEASON (34A: When hunting restrictions are lifted)
• BALLOON POP (41A: Carnival diversion requiring precision)

Word of the Day: SILENT BOB (33D: Jay's reticent partner of filmdom) —

Jay and Silent Bob are fictional characters portrayed by American actors Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith, respectively. They appear in the View Askewniverse, a fictional universe used in most of the films, comics, and television programs written and produced by Smith. [...]

The characters are shown spending most of their time selling marijuana in front of the convenience store in the Clerks films. In Clerks: The Animated Series, they were also shown selling illegal fireworks. [...]

Silent Bob, portrayed by Kevin Smith, has a reticent nature, communicating mostly through gestures and facial expressions rather than speech. When he does speak, his comments are often poignant and insightful, providing critical reflections that influence the course of the narratives. Silent Bob is characterized by his long dark hair, beard, and a backwards baseball cap, and typically wears a long coat resembling a Jedi robe. Originally a smoker, the character has been shown to have quit in later films.

• • •

I don't mind a simple pun theme on a weekday, but the punniness here feels like a stretch most of the time. "THAT'S FAIR GAME" works pretty well for BALLOON POP, which is, in fact, a game one might find at a fair, but you wouldn't say "THAT'S FAIR GAME" about OPEN SEASON, exactly. It's like one word is missing each time: "that's a fair game" for BALLOON POP; "that means fair game" for OPEN SEASON (which I believe is where the phrase "fair game" comes from in the first place). SPORTSMANSHIP has maybe the wonkiest relationship to the revealer of all. "Those people played a fair game"? Is that the idea? Also, playing fairly and displaying SPORTSMANSHIP feel like two different things to me. I have to mentally torture the revealer phrase a bit to make it apply properly to the themers, and ... I guess I don't really like mentally torturing things. I also had no idea that the fair game in question was called a BALLOON POP. I guess it makes sense. That's literally what you do—make a balloon pop ... by shooting water in a clown's mouth? Am I thinking of the right game? No, wait, is it by throwing darts at a wall of balloons? Yeah, it looks like the latter is correct. What am I thinking of, with the freaky clown mouths? AH, YES, here we go—absolute nightmare fuel:

There's also apparently a ball-in-the-mouth variation, which is somehow worse:

["Feed us, Billy!!!!"]

No balloons in the ball-in-the-mouth version. No wonder clowns want to kill humans in so many horror movies. Look at the weird gagging-torture rituals we subject them to!

The fill on this one buckles and sags under the weight of very tired 3-4-5s, including two awkward -ED's (CCED, OKED), a counting partial (EENIE), and a classic kealoa* (ATAD) (not ABIT) (19A: Slightly), which (fittingly?) sits right underneath an answer whose clue contains an actual Loa (16A: Mauna Loa output). There's also a Charybdis-like vortex of awful, ambiguous two-letter hesitation syllables in the central SW, with the "OH" from "OH, IT'S ON" running smack into the "UH" from "UH, NO," which is itself adjacent to the "AH" in "AH, YES." You should really only be allowed one of those per grid. I think that "H" where "UH" meets "OH" took me longer to work out than anything else in the grid. I kept leaving it and coming back to it until I finally parsed "OH, IT'S ON." "UM, NO" seemed just as valid as "UH, NO," but "OM, IT'S ON" would really only work at an improbably violent meditation retreat.

Bullets:

• 14A: Covid-19, colloquially ('RONA) — this cutesy name for the disease makes my skin crawl every time it comes up. I never thought I'd say this, but just bring back '70s gossip columnist RONA Barrett. 

• 4D: Music genre named for its voluminous dos (HAIR METAL) — best answer in the grid. Most entertaining, anyway. I definitely got the double-disc Monster Ballads compilation when it came out in the late '90s. It hadn't even been ten years since HAIR METAL "died" (I guess Grunge killed it?), but the nostalgia was already in full effect.

• 31D: Meshed (with) (JIBED) —GIBED, JIVED, JIBED ... I'm truly hopeless in this arena.
• 24A: On-schedule (TIMELY) — this doesn't work. "TIMELY" is far looser and more abstract than "on-schedule." Trains can be on time, but they're not "TIMELY."
• 62A: Instrument also called the "sprightly companion" (OBOE) — ok, what? By whom? I dare you to call it that in regular conversation (you know, all the regular conversations you have about OBOEs).
• 11D: One preferring purrs to pooches (CAT PERSON) — OK, first of all, that clue is terrible. Where's the parallel construction!? "Purrs" are an animal sound, whereas "pooches" are the animal itself. Really … ruff. Your alliteration is not worth it! Second, I am very much a CAT PERSON (in that I own and love cats) but this has absolutely no relationship to my feelings about dogs, whom I also generally adore. I talk to every dog I see, even if I only see it out the car window. But then again I pretty much talk to every animal I see, even if it's on the television. "Buddy!" "Hey, buddy." "Look at that buddy!" I'll say. Anyway, I do not get these "preference" people. No need to make the denigration of other species part of your identity. Justice for all buddies! ("buddy" and "missy" are just the most common of the 1,001 things I call Alfie and Ida, respectively). Here's a little visual short story to give you some indication of what I'm dealing with here every day:

That's all. See you next time.

*kealoa = a pair of words (normally short, common answers) that can be clued identically and that share at least one letter in common (in the same position). These are answers you can't just fill in quickly because two or more answers are viable, Even With One or More Letters In Place. From the classic [Mauna ___] KEA/LOA conundrum. See also, e.g. [Heaps] => ATON or ALOT, ["Git!"] => "SHOO" or "SCAT," etc.  

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Feature of "rendezvous" and "laissez-faire" / TUE 9-22-26 / Beetle amulet in ancient Egypt / Spy's identifier / Popular times for tacos / "Demon Slayer" or "Attack on Titan"

Constructor: Erik Agard

Relative difficulty: Easy

[2D: ___-Wan Kenobi]

THEME: SONGS IN / THE KEY OF LIFE (50A: With 52-Across, double album released on September 28, 1976, that spent 13 straight weeks at #1) — ❤️❤️❤️🎵🎵🎵❤️❤️❤️ An anniversary tribute to a classic double album by STEVIE WONDER (19A: 50/52-Across musician):

#1 songs:

• "SIR DUKE" (21A: #1 hit from 50/52-Across ("You can feel it all over")
• "I WISH" (37A: #1 hit from 50/52-Across ("Why did those days ever have to go?")

Word of the Day: SONGS IN / THE KEY OF LIFE (50A) —

Songs in the Key of Life is the eighteenth studio album by the American singer, songwriter and musician Stevie Wonder. A triple album, it was released on September 28, 1976, by Tamla Records, a division of Motown. The album is regarded as the culmination of Wonder's "classic period" of recording, which began in 1972 with Music of My Mind.

By 1974, Wonder was one of the most successful figures in popular music; his previous albums Music of My Mind (1972), Talking Book (1972), Innervisions (1973), and Fulfillingness' First Finale (1974) were back-to-back critical successes. However, by March 1975, Wonder seriously considered quitting the music industry and emigrating to Ghana to aid children with disabilities. Plans for a farewell concert had already begun when Wonder changed his mind and signed a new contract with Motown on August 5, 1975. This outlined a seven-year, seven-album deal, with full artistic control. This deal included $13 million up front, a potential bonus of up to $20 million, 20% of the royalties, and ownership of the publishing rights. At the time, it was the biggest recording deal in history.

Songs in the Key of Life was released as a double LP with a four-song bonus EP. It debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart, becoming only the third album to achieve that feat, and the first by an American artist. Both the lead single "I Wish" and follow-up single "Sir Duke" reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100. The album spent thirteen consecutive weeks at number one on the Billboard 200, becoming the album with the most weeks at number one during the year, and was the second-best-selling album of 1977 in the US. In 2005, the album was certified Diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), indicating sales of 5 million units for a double album.

The album won Album of the Year at the 19th Grammy Awards and is the best-selling and most critically acclaimed album of Wonder's career. It is now widely regarded as one of the greatest albums in the history of popular music, and many musicians have remarked on its influence on their own work. It was voted number 89 in Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums and ranked number 4 on Rolling Stone's 2020 list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time". In 2002, the album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, and in 2005 it was inducted into the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress, which deemed it "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". (wikipedia)

• • •

Look at this puzzle! Isn't she lovely? Knocks me off my feet. I wish every puzzle made me this happy. If you did not like this, I think you need to have a talk with God. Or better yet, just listen to the album. Front to back, all the way through. Then get back to me. True, it can't improve your experience of a puzzle you've already finished, but it can improve your day and your heart and your soul. Give it a shot. Once I got those first two themers today, I was beaming, and the beaming never stopped. One of my favorite constructors makes a puzzle about one of my favorite albums, and it's not even my birthday? Well, it is my daughter's birthday (happy birthday, kiddo), so ... close enough. I cannot believe that just yesterday, on my best friend's birthday, I mentioned that she (Shaun) and I, and her then-fiancé (Steve) saw STEVIE WONDER on New Year's Eve thirty-two years ago at the Fox Theater in Detroit, and that we were lucky enough to score tickets last week to see him again, later this year, at the same venue. What I didn't mention was that the name of this upcoming tour is ... The "SONGS IN / THE KEY OF LIFE Performances— Fiftieth Anniversary Tour." 

Last week, all four of us (Shaun, Steve, my wife, me), got online and tried to buy tickets to one of the two Detroit shows as soon as they went on sale. Once the sale goes live, you get (randomly?) put into a queue. My number was 4,000 something, which seemed horrible, but was actually much better than most. (I later saw screenshots from people trying to score tix to the show at MSG in NYC that showed their place in the queue somewhere in the 600,000s). But 4,000 wasn't good enough to get all the seats we needed. Luckily, Shaun drew a number closer to 1,000 and so we're going! I spent that whole day stunned at our good luck. Annnnnyway, Stevie rules, SONGS IN / THE KEY OF LIFE is perfect, and this puzzle is smooth as hell even without the Stevie content. My only complaint is that this should've run next Monday, on the exact day of the 50th anniversary. Please don't tell me "but this is not a Monday puzzle." It's very easy, and anyway ... Monday, Tuesday, close enough. No one's gonna be mad that their Monday puzzle has Stevie in it. I know this grid has TUESDAYS baked into it, but anniversary puzzles should appear on the days they're commemorating if at all possible. Then again, the fact that this puzzle got made at all is a miracle, so I'll take it on whatever day you wanna give it to me.

This puzzle seems to have been made especially easy, perhaps to account for the folks who will not be familiar with the Stevie content. But easy certainly doesn't mean boring. You get those little 6-7-8 stacks in the SW and NE corners, and then the 7-8 colonnades in the NW and SE. CODE NAME, "I'LL GET IT!," well-earned FANFARE (43D: Celebratory hoopla). All that and a SILENT Z, in addition to the Steviestravaganza!? I don't have any complaints. I did balk at ROOFS, but nope, that's the correct plural alright. I wrote the [Nail polish brand] in as ESI ... which is, in fact, a nail polish, if you throw another "S" and "E" in there.

I wrote in WRY instead of DRY (18D: Like some humor and runs) (clearly didn't see the "runs" part), but I think that's it as far as screw-ups go. Oh, and I had to wait for crosses on ANIME (27D: "Demon Slayer" or "Attack on Titan"). Those titles ring a bell, but clearly not a loud enough bell.

Bullets:

• 30A: Resident of Africa's fourth-largest country (LIBYAN) — oh look, another little mistake that I made. I had the -YAN part and wrote in KENYAN. Kenya is actually the 23rd-largest country in Africa. You know, in case that ever comes up.
• 53D: Ivy League school in New Haven (YALE) — once again, happy birthday to the girl, who turns 26 today. I wasn't going to tell you Yet Again that she's currently getting her MFA at the David Geffen School of Drama at YALE (Technical Design and Production), but the puzzle kind of forced my hand, sorry.
• 28D: Contents of plastic sleeves or jewel cases, informally (CDS) — I've got one of the SONGS IN / THE KEY OF LIFE CDS in the car and the other in my little Bose CD player / clock radio near my comfy coffee chair in the library. First thing I'm gonna do when I get downstairs is hit "Play."
• 61A: Whistlers in the kitchen (KETTLES) — speaking of, gotta go get my whistler in the kitchen fired up so I can have my coffee. Actually, my kettle doesn't whistle. It's one of them fancy kettles that hits whatever temperature you want and just stays there. Got a little temp read-out and everything. It is black and sleek and beautiful and my best friend in the morning. Yes, I love the cats, but they are takers and they know it. The kettle simply gives. 

That's all for today. See you next time. And I hope you give the album a spin today. It really is a thing of beauty.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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