Pomegranate morsel / SAT 5-9-26 / Black-and-white debut of 1912 / Portable retirement option / Setup for an extra point / Won land / ___ Kitchen, brand of organic foods since 1987 / Great find in the candy aisle, by the sound of it / 2000 parody of a 62-Across / Skirt with a bunch of leaves / Weighty subject of some children's books / Parlor treat typically serve with the first five letters of its name / Central Plains nation governed by the Nasharo Council

Constructor: Katie Hoody

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: DABO Sweeney (37D: Clemson's ___ Swinney (winningest head football coach in A.C.C. history)) —

William Christopher "Dabo" Swinney (/ˈdæboʊ ˈswiːniː/; born November 20, 1969) is an American college football coach, currently serving as the head football coach at Clemson University. Swinney took over as head coach of the Clemson Tigers seven games into the 2008 season, following the resignation of Tommy Bowden. Swinney's team won national championships in 2016 and 2018. His 2018 Clemson Tigers have often been considered one of the greatest college football teams of all time. He is the winningest head coach in Clemson football history and Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) football history. [...] Swinney's nickname "Dabo" was given to him as an infant by his brother, Tripp, who would try to enunciate "that boy" when referring to Swinney. (wikipedia)

• • •

What makes a game of poker into a POKER PARTY? (26D: Event at which you hope to get good deals?) Chips? Beer? I mean, it doesn't matter, I'm still not going ... just curious. Anyway, despite my not caring about poker or college football (a POKER PARTY where they put on college football would be one of the least likely places to find me), I really enjoyed this puzzle, which was way, way easier than yesterday's. Feels like the days got switched. The only mystery proper noun in this one was DABO, and he wasn't actually a mystery to me—despite not paying a lick of attention to college football for decades, I still managed to pick up that guy's name. "Oh, he's the guy with that name ... that name that's not a name ... ends in an 'O'"—that was enough for me. Plus the crosses on his name were easy, in case you were at a total loss. I was all set to say "that's a ridiculous name" but then I learned that it was a nickname given to him because when he was a baby, his brother would refer to him as "that boy" and it came out DABO. Hard not to find that at least a little endearing. But as I said, his name was the only proper noun in the puzzle that seemed like it might throw some (non-college-sports follower) people. DABO Swinney is probably much more famous than ARI SHAPIRO, generally, but with crossword solvers ... I'm guessing you all are much more of an NPR crowd (27D: Radio journalist with the 2023 memoir "The Best Strangers in the World: Stories From a Life Spent Listening"). I suppose it's possible you've never heard of AMY'S Kitchen (1D: ___ Kitchen, brand of organic foods since 1987), but that one was a gimme for me—first thing in the grid. I had much more trouble with the proper noun next door: LEO I. I thought he was one of them OTTOs or even OTHOs. But nope, just another Leo (Just Another Leo ... tell the pope he can have that memoir title for free). 

Not always thrilled by the heavily segmented four-quadrant puzzle, but this four-quadrant puzzle wasn't actually heavily segmented at all—lots of nice flow provided by the crossing central 15s, which are probably the element that make this feel much more like a Friday than a Saturday. They gave the puzzle a good deal of whoosh—access to every corner in very little time. The STRAWBERRY SHAKE clue is clever, for sure, but far too easy (for a Saturday) (8D: Parlor treat typically served with the first five letters of its name). I had the STRAW part before I ever looked at the clue. Got KINDA SORTA MAYBE from pieces of SORTA and MAYBE (38: List of qualifications?). I'm not sure I fully believe in the phrase KINDA SORTA MAYBE. "Kinda sorta," sure. The "maybe" part is taking it a little far, but I trust that enough people say the three-part version of this purposefully redundant phrase to make it a valid expression. I certainly got the KINDA part easily enough, and the whole thing sounds ... fine, so ... fine. 

While the puzzle wasn't hard today, it did have lots of twisty language in the cluing. Plenty of "?" clues, and then ambiguously misdirective stuff like 35D: Sound made by many fans (ROAR) ("fans" here are at a sporting event or concert or the like). 67A: Skirt with a bunch of leaves is a skirt STEAK and the leaves are a SALAD. The "dash" in 12D: Statement that may be followed by a dash is a footrace ("I'LL RACE YOU"). The "retirement" in 32A: Portable retirement option is sleep (COT) (lots of initial IRAs there today, I'm guessing). The "won" in 52D: Won land is currency (KOREA). The "setup" in 40D: Setup for an extra point is a verbal setup, a word that sets up a further "point" that you might want to make ("ALSO ..."). The subject in 11D: Weighty subject of some children's books is "weighty" not because it's serious, but because the subject. literally weighs a ton (or several tons, I guess—I've honestly never thought about BABAR's weight). Despite all of this trickiness, I only made two real mistakes today, neither of them serious. For 39D: Bath seat? (ARSE), I wrote in APSE (!?!?). I was thinking there's a cathedral in Bath, and maybe you sit in the APSE? But no, it's just British "ass." My favorite mistake, though, came in the candy aisle. I decided, in all my crossword geniositude, that 51A: Great find in the candy aisle, by the sound of it (SKÖR) must be a "great find ... by the sound of it" because you "see" it ... so ... SEE'S! SEE'S candy! I'll accept my Smart Guy Crossword Medal now, thank you.

Bullets:

• 11A: One making calls on the fly? (BIRD) — needed every cross and still didn't really get it. "So... the birds are deciding who's going to eat the fly? What are these, swallows? I don't get it." But no. Birds simply fly ... and make their ordinary bird calls while doing so.
• 17A: Exclamation of surprise from a host ("YOU'RE EARLY!") — on its own, I'm not sure I would've thought this was the greatest candidate for a crossword answer, but with that clue, the phrase feels perfectly natural. Gives some colloquial sparkle to an already fairly sparkly grid.
• 62A: 2000 parody of a 62-Across (SCARY MOVIE) — another perfect clue. Nice use of the self-referential strategy.
• 59D: Kilo follower (LIMA) — NATO alphabet: "... Juliett, Kilo, LIMA, Mike (Mike!?!?) ..."
• 63D: New ___ University of Knuckleheads (fictional institution where Leslie Nielsen lectured about the Three Stooges) (YUK) — a very long way to go for YUK but I really enjoyed the journey. That is, I enjoyed (finally) discovering the answer. Nice callback to MOE, too (6D: One of the Three Stooges).

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

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Peabody-winning journalist Steve / FRI 5-8-26 / Ding thing? / Tuber that's the source of tapioca / Mammoth's home, for short / It's usually followed by an "s" / Humor without a traditional punchline / Cartoonist who popularized the Democratic donkey / Where to see fresh coats of white? / One of two in Raphael's "Sistine Madonna"

Constructor: Rafael Musa and Geoffrey Schorkopf

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: Steve KROFT (51A: Peabody-winning journalist Steve) —

 

Stephen F. Kroft (born August 22, 1945) is an American retired journalist who was a long-time correspondent for 60 Minutes. His investigative reporting garnered widespread acclaim, winning him three Peabody Awards and nine Emmy awards, including one for Lifetime Achievement in 2003. [...] In 1990, he became the first American journalist to be given extensive access to the contaminated grounds of the Chernobyl nuclear facility, and his story won an Emmy.^[8] After allegations of infidelity surfaced in the 1992 presidential election, then-Governor Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary, gave an exclusive interview to Kroft. The interview was one of the defining moments in the election. [...] Kroft asked Clint Eastwood how many children he has while interviewing the highly secretive actor in 1997. When Eastwood responded "I have a few," Kroft broached the subject with a declarative question: "Seven kids with five women, right?"—actually a conservative estimate, but at the time an unprecedented statement. Eastwood did not answer and stared at Kroft in silence for 30 seconds. [lol] (wikipedia)

• • •

This was fun, but way harder than I'm used to Friday puzzles being of late. No whoosh or zoom for me today, as three out of the four quadrants involved some amount of struggle today. Of the longer answers, SEX MANUALS and "WHEN IN ROME..." went in pretty easily, but all the rest had me stopping and thinking. Only the NE corner, the last section I solved, ended up being relatively easy, and that's because I. had the bottom of those longer answers already built—the SKIP from SKIP STONES went up into that corner and everything worked out from there. But back to the beginning—yeesh and yikes, that little 3x4 section at the far NW was very, very hard for me to nail down. -A-ESON (1A: Criticizes, in modern lingo) + -TT- (1D: It's usually followed by an "s") + -S- (19A: Hollywood is on it: Abbr.) + -EX- (3D: Ding thing?) had me worried I was losing my mind. Eventually I got HTTP and HATES ON and it all fell, but every clue in there had me mystified for a bit. Elsewhere, the plural of MED SCHOOLS was hidden / invisible (28D: Where to see fresh coats of white?), so even though I wanted SCHOOLS, I pulled it. I had no idea who Steve KROFT was (turns out, I know who he is, but only by face, not by name). So the SW corner fought me a little as well. 

And then there was the SE corner, which was giving me nothing until I finally got to a gimme: KOFI (54D: ___ Annan, former U.N. secretary general). I was able to build back from there, through the gratuitous Taylor Swift reference, through RONDA (another answer, like MED SCHOOLS, that I had but then pulled), back to ... MANIOC!? (46D: Tuber that's the source of tapioca). LOL, "She's a MANIOC, MAAAAAANIOC!" I swear to god I wrote TAPIOC in there for a bit. I guess I've heard of MANIOC but hoo boy, not a front-of-the-brainer. I think I had CASAVA in there at some point too, and I was close: cassava is another name for MANIOC, but as you can see, "cassava" has two "s"s, not one. sigh. That "N" in MANIOC was elusive because I don't know what a Chilango is (someone from Chile, I'm guessing, now) [nope—a resident of Mexico City, lol, no hope of guessing that],  ... let's just say the missing tilde on that "N" is somehow extra grating today. SEÑOR. It's SEÑOR. Not SENOR. . . Pfft. OK, I think that's all the SORE SPOTS. Again, I think the grid is good today, I just was not prepared for this kind of a struggle on a normally breezy Friday.

Today's marquee answers are more than up to the job (that job: being sexy and/or flashy and/or generally interesting). ANTI-COMEDY was the only thing that landed with a thud for me, mostly because I don't really believe in it (11D: Humor without a traditional punchline). It's still comedy, right? I'm not sure which comedians are allegedly anti-comedians. The two main figures who get cited on the ANTI-COMEDY wikipedia page are Andy Kaufman and Norm Macdonald ... yeah, OK, that helps a little. Still, "subverting normal joke structure" is just a form of comedy. Subverting normal structures is a standard thing that happens within all arts. I just think ANTI-COMEDY is a stupid label. A real term, but a dumb one. But this is a personal opinion, not a genuine fault with the puzzle. And as I say, the other longer answers really sing. SKIP STONES, SINK HOLE, "WHEN IN ROME..." ... I love that SEX MANUALS and STARTER KIT are in symmetry. Makes me wonder what kind of STARTER KIT we're talking about. What kind of "gear" you got there, buddy? (30D: First gear?).

Bullets:

• 17A: One away from one's duties? (TAX EXILE) — at first I thought this was going to be something about going AWOL, but no, "duties" = taxes. Really thought throwing TAX into that far NW corner was going to bring it right down, but even with the "X," as I said above—rough going up there.
• 18A: French exit (SORTIE) — literally the French word for "exit." The clue is playing on this meaning of "french exit": "a departure from a location or event without informing others or without seeking approval"

• 48A: Mammoth's home, for short (NHL) — I forget which team this is. LOL there's a Utah Mammoth now? Yes, since 2024, there is. My sports IQ really fell through the floor when I gave up network/cable TV (and therefore ESPN).

• 3D: Ding thing? (TEXT) — as someone who has all sounds on his phone turned O-F-F (because they are a public nuisance), this clue really really missed me. SEXT seemed more likely, somehow (Does "Ding" have sexual implications? Maybe not. But somehow, with the winky little "?" at the end of the clue, it feels like it does...) 

• 10D: Accessory turned down on a cap (EARLAP) — never gonna get over how this is basically the same thing as EAR FLAP. Like, someone was just lazy and didn't want to say or write the "F" and so now we've got a stupid variant (not sure which spelling is the variant, actually). Literally, the meaning of EARLAP is EARFLAP. Come on. Can we not collectively agree to throw one of these terms in the sea?
• 39D: ___ Theatre, Atlanta art house named for a fictional estate (TARA) — the "estate" here is the one from Gone With the Wind. Feels like the clue is going out of its way not to mention Gone With the Wind, possibly because it sentimentalizes the "Old South," but the clue somehow has the opposite effect, highlighting the title by referring to it elliptically. Anyway, if you are unfamiliar with Gone With the Wind lore and don't live in Atlanta, I imagine this clue might've been baffling. TARA used to be clued almost exclusively as this estate, or as a place in Ireland. These days, it's much more likely to be someone's name—historically, skater TARA Lipinski has dominated (since her first appearance in 1998), but actress TARA Reid has gotten a lot of play (disproportionate to her actual fame, one might argue), and writer TARA Westover (Educated) also appears from time to time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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