Kind of jam in a Sacher torte / MON 10-12-26 / "Clemency" actress Woodard / Celtics legend nicknamed "The Hick from French Lick" / "Jurassic Park" insect casing / Movie princess with "space buns" / Explosive block in Minecraft

Constructor: Zhouqin Burnikel

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (**solved Downs-only**)

[31A: Movie princess with "space buns" = LEIA]

THEME: OUT ON A LIMB (58A: Positioned precariously ... or where the ends of 16-, 24-, 35- and 49-Across can all be found) — two-word phrases where the second word is something you might find on a tree limb:

Theme answers:

• NISSAN LEAF (16A: Electric vehicle from Japan)
• MARE'S NEST (24A: Total mess)
• MOOD SWING (35A: Unpredictable emotional shift)
• LARRY BIRD (49A: Celtics legend nicknamed "The Hick from French Lick")

Word of the Day: Clemency (8D: "Clemency" actress Woodard = ALFRE) —

Clemency is a 2019 American drama film written and directed by Chinonye Chukwu. It stars Alfre Woodard, Richard Schiff, Danielle Brooks, Michael O'Neill, Richard Gunn, Wendell Pierce, and Aldis Hodge. The plot follows the lives of prison warden Bernadine Williams (Woodard) and death row inmate Anthony Woods (Hodge).

Clemency had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Grand Jury Prize for U.S. Dramatic Competition, on January 27, 2019 and was theatrically released in the United States by Neon on December 27, 2019. The film received acclaim from critics, who lauded Woodard's performance, as well as Chukwu's direction and screenplay. It earned nominations for Best Feature, Best Female Lead (for Woodard), and Best Screenplay (for Chukwu) at the 35th Independent Spirit Awards and Best Actress in a Leading Role (for Woodard) at the 74th British Academy Film Awards.

• • •

A decent but slightly ho-hum theme elevated by a raft of 7s in the corners that kept the grid interesting. Also, it's a nice touch to have all the limb-related things be non-limb-related in their respective answers (i.e. the leaf isn't the kind on a tree, the nest isn't a bird's nest, the swing is not one you swing from, and the bird is a human being). Solving it Downs-only got a little hairy in places. Of the eight 7s, only three of them came easily to me (SASHIMI, TROTSKY, AMENITY). Took a few beats to get LEISURE—love the clue, but it's a bit of a thinker (2D: It isn't working). Seems like the kind that should have a "!" on the end. That's customary with one of these "it" clues that use a common saying (e.g. [Step on it!]) in order to get at an expected and very literal meaning of it (answers to [Step on it!] have ranged from INSOLE to MAT to SCALE). I'm noticing now, though, that editorial practice is remarkably inconsistent on this front. On one Thursday in 2019, for instance, the clue for PEDAL was [Step on it!], with the "!," but on another Thursday just four years later, PEDAL got the same clue, but without the "!" Same day of the week, so I have no idea what gives. Anyway, the "!" is the way I'm used to seeing this brand of "it" clue handled, and without it today, it took me a moment to realize that it was the "it" that the clue wanted in 2D: It isn't working (LEISURE). 

The clue for "CORRECT!" threw me because of the "You're" part (10D: "You're right!"). I mean, ["Right!"] would've worked just as well. I was looking for some phrase or expression that clearly related to the "You're," but no dice. The hardest of the 7s for me were the two in the SW. Totally forgot what jam was in a Sacher torte and could think only of things ending -BERRY. As for a flower named after a drink, I was at a loss completely. That whole corner got very dicey as a result. I didn't even have AMBER because I was thinking the "insect casing" was part of the insect, like an exoskeleton (32D: "Jurassic Park" insect casing). This left a gaping hole in the SW that was hard to infer Acrosses across. I would've been a lot faster if I'd been able to make any sense of L---Y BIRD. LARRY BIRD Was My Favorite Player When I Was A Kid!!! And yet all my brain could see was LOONY BIRD (?) or LUCKY BIRD (!?) (which is not a thing, but I definitely wondered if it was). Eventually I was like "D'oh! LARRY!" And then I got AMBER and APRICOT and things came together.

I was prepared to be mad at the theme early on because it looked like some kind of bird/nest thing was developing (LEAF, NEST ...) and so I thought the third theme element was WING. "You can't do that! You can't have the other theme parts be stand-alones and then have one of them be part of a word! Boo!" But then in the end, I realized that it was SWING, not WING, that was thematic. So I retracted my "Boo!" 

Bullets:

• 23A: Signaling, as a performer (CUING) — this word looks so weird. I wrote in LEISURE, saw that it gave me CUING in the cross, and promptly retracted LEISURE—that's how unwordlike CUING looked to me. Like a sound effect more than a word. But I did ultimately realize that it was CUE + -ING.
• 43D: Went hog wild (RAN AMOK) — another fairly tough 7 to crack. Wanted it to end in -ED until I was able to infer that -OK at the end.
• 59D: Reason for overtime (TIE) — total mystery to me for many seconds, despite my having the "T" in place, because I was imagining the "overtime" as work-, not sports-related. "Reason for overtime? Uh, you need more money and it pays time and a half? There's extra work to be done? The boss asked? ... How is this a three-letter word!?!?!"

That's all for today. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
=============================
❤️ Support this blog ❤️: 

• Venmo (@MichaelDavidSharp)]

=============================
📘 My other blog 📘:

• Pop Sensation (vintage paperbacks)

Read more...

Listened to "Rigoletto" way too many times? / SUN 10-11-26 / Depression formed by a volcano's collapse / Stress-induced discomfort / Young newts / Daniel ___ (children's TV character) / Boulderer's safety item / Secrets known only to E.N.T.s? / Needlessly adorns, in an idiom / Sleuth, slangily / Infamous Russian mystic / N.K. ___, "Broken Earth" trilogy author / "The Bear" matriarch played by Jamie Lee Curtis

Constructor: Michael Lieberman

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "Heart Transplants" — wacky phrases where one word (or phrase) is "transplanted" into the "heart" (center) of the other word (or phrase):

Theme answers:

• KLINGON LINGO (23A: Some "Star Trek" slang?)
• EAR CANAL ARCANA (34A: Secrets known only to E.N.T.s?)
• OVERDID VERDI (43A: Listened to "Rigoletto" way too many times?)
• PAPER CUT APERÇU (64A: "A sharp edge recalls a splinter's bite" or "The forest's final revenge is whisper-thin," e.g.?)
• ELICIT FELICITY (75A: Spark joy?)
• HINDI SHINDIG (98A: Diwali or Holi?)
• LAST IN BLASTING (106A: Like the world's worst demolition company?)
• LOTSA FLOTSAM (120A: A whole bunch of ocean detritus?)

Word of the Day: Daniel TIGER (85A: Daniel ___ (children's TV character)) —

 

• Daniel Stripèd Tiger (performed by Fred Rogers) – Daniel Stripèd Tiger is the first puppet ever to appear on Children's Corner and Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. He is a shy tiger who lives in a non-functioning grandfather clock with no hands, as it is whatever time can change in The Land Of Make-Believe. Despite his shyness, Daniel exhibits wisdom and intelligence when he does speak. His favorite toy is a small dump truck and he wears a watch on one arm because he lives in the clock and always has to know what time it is. He was the ring bearer for Betty and James's wedding. He was named after Dorothy Daniel, who gave Fred his first puppet. Daniel was the puppet most frequently brought along by Rogers for live performances and Rogers stated that Daniel represented certain aspects of his personality. In July 2011, PBS announced that Daniel's son (also named Daniel) would be the star of his own show Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood. (wikipedia)

• • •

I kept wanting the shaded squares to do something. To spell something. To be meaningful in any way. But they were just the shell, the outer casing for the other word/phrase to be "transplanted" into. The effect is a bunch of random shaded letters and theme answers that are way, way, way too easy to uncover. Repetition is built into the theme, so any challenge that the theme clues might present is practically eliminated. I think some of the theme answers work OK—OVERDID VERDI is probably the nicest, the most compact, the most plausible, and LAST IN BLASTING the funniest—but mostly they're just there, doing this trasplanty thing in a a kind of ho-hum way. And about APERÇU ... look, no one likes this word. The only time you ever see it is in crosswords. I thought I knew what it meant, but that clue makes me unsure (64A: "A sharp edge recalls a splinter's bite" or "The forest's final revenge is whisper-thin," e.g.?). Are APERÇUs just ... sayings? Aphorisms? The ones in the clue read like bad fortune-cookie fortunes. I thought the term meant something like "pithy observation," and I guess that's what those are, but woof. Since when did whispers start being "thin?" Don't tell me, probably the 18th century. I'm used to things being "whisper quiet" and "paper thin." My point is, a theme answer where your wordplay is built around the word APERÇU, probably not gonna be a crowd-pleaser. Mostly, this puzzle just felt insubstantial. I had some very minor trouble in and around the NE, but otherwise, the themers made it very easy to move through the long stuff, and the short stuff put up next to no fight, so pfft—game over quickly, little impression left.

["With just three days more / I'd've just about learned the entire score / To AIDA (4)"]

The one real highlight for me was when I remembered the word "CALDERA" (38A: Depression formed by a volcano's collapse). It did not happen immediately. I was like "what's that word, I know I know it" and so I left and came back, then I had the "-ER-" and thought "I think it ends in 'A'" and that checked out and then I was like "ha, CALDERA, it's CALDERA!" And I was right. Hurray, brain! Slow, but still got it! On the other hand, my brain was less cooperative in the NE, particularly with the second themer, where I could see very quickly that the word "ARCANA" was gonna be involved, but I just couldn't parse the EAR CANAL part. I was like "EAR ... CANADA?" I think the fact that EAR CANAL was two words threw me. Also throwing me in that area was IN PEN, which I had as INKED (31A: Like most autographs). And since I have never seen a single episode of "The Bear," the "matriarch played by Jamie Lee Curtis" ended up looking like it was gonna be DONDA, and I thought "sure, why not? Weird name, but maybe that's why they're using such a niche reference." But the "K" in INKED eventually made everything buckle. I was staring down PET KASS- at 15D: Document used for a travel companion who might sit under a seat and after I entertained PET KASSETTE for about a half second, I realized INKED had to be wrong. PET PASSPORT, IN PEN, DONNA, done done done. Weird to actually get INK just a few answers down from there, at INK PAD (53A: Rubber stamp go-with). Weirder still to get a second PAD (see 15A: Boulderer's safety item). Doubling PAD feels bad, especially when one of the PADs is stand-alone. I understand tolerating some minor duping (like CHANCE IT / YES IT IS / 'TIS), but duping PAD is conspicuous. Makes the editing seem sloppy.

[25A: Infamous Russian mystic]

Bullets:

• 101D: Vietnamese sandwich (BANH MI) — this was how I distinguished LIS from LYS (128A: Fleur-de-___). But I still managed to spell "BANH" wrong (like the German road instead of the ... Vietnamese sandwich)

• 62A: Sleuth, slangily (TEC) — still not sure who's using this when? I see it all the time in crosswords, but not in crime fiction, which I teach regularly. Dick, shamus, gumshoe, P.I. ... all valid. TEC, blecch.
• 130A: Needlessly adorns, in an idiom (GILDS) — as in "___ the lily."
• 8D: Stress-induced discomfort (AGITA) — a Crossword Condition, like APNEA or ACNE or a STYE, except I've actually heard all those used outside crosswords (not true of AGITA).
• 90D: Home of the N.C.A.A.'s Flyers (DAYTON) — me, stubbornly: "Why Won't PHILLY work!?!?!" (by "stubbornly," I mean "stubbornly ignoring the 'N.C.A.A.' part of the clue)

• 92D: Train sound (WHISTLE) — had the "W-" and really wanted "WHOO-HOO" or "WOO-WHOO" or some other "sound" vaguely resembling whatever sound a train WHISTLE makes. Something like this:

• 114D: Young newts (EFTS) — EFTS crossing AREEL is a real crosswordese low point today, rivaled in its nadirnity only by ORO crossing ARCO crossing APERÇU. Oh, and that rotten PEI ÉTÉ REI center. The heart of the Tootsie Pop is supposed to be good, not evil!

That's all for today. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
=============================
❤️ Support this blog ❤️: 

• Venmo (@MichaelDavidSharp)]

=============================

=============================
📘 My other blog 📘:

• Pop Sensation (vintage paperbacks)

Read more...