Easternmost point of Silk Road / FRI 9-4-20 / prima painting technique / Brightest star in Lyra / Land east of eastern desert / Expensive beer chaser / Wedding dress that's often red

Constructor: Brian Thomas

Relative difficulty: Challenging (slowest Friday in a long time, though ... again, I'm solving at 5am, just out of bed, so that could be it?)

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: JEANNETTE RANKIN (34A: Congresswoman who said "I want to be remembered as the only woman who ever voted to give women the right to vote") —

Jeannette Pickering Rankin (June 11, 1880 – May 18, 1973) was an American politician and women's rights advocate, and the first woman to hold federal office in the United States. She was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Republican from Montana in 1916, and again in 1940.

Each of Rankin's Congressional terms coincided with initiation of U.S. military intervention in the two World Wars. A lifelong pacifist, she was one of 50 House members who opposed the declaration of war on Germany in 1917. In 1941, she was the only member of Congress to vote against the declaration of war on Japan following the attack on Pearl Harbor.

A suffragist during the Progressive Era, Rankin organized and lobbied for legislation enfranchising women in several states including Montana, New York, and North Dakota. While in Congress, she introduced legislation that eventually became the 19th Constitutional Amendment, granting unrestricted voting rights to women nationwide. She championed a multitude of diverse women's rights and civil rights causes throughout a career that spanned more than six decades. To date, Rankin remains the only woman ever elected to Congress from Montana. (wikipedia)

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West half of my grid has hardly any green ink on it at all, whereas the east is predominantly green ink (green ink being what I use to mark up all the problem areas), and the SE alone took me probably half my time, which was very high for me (8-9 min. maybe? I often shut the puzzle without writing it down). So mostly what I remember about the puzzle was struggle. Sadly, didn't have very many moments where I thought "cool!" or "good one!" It seemed solid enough, but a little blah. The center answer is undoubtedly interesting and original, but I didn't have that "aha" joy because I just couldn't retrieve her name, so her last name in particular (which was at one entryway to the SE corner) just blocked me. Same with [Athlete in the N.B.A.'s Southwest Div.] (MAV). I know all the NBA teams, but the idea that I have them sorted in my head by division, ugh, no. I'm I figured MAV but didn't really know. Something team-specific would be nice. Anyway, staying in the SE: 

• didn't know if it was IN A ROUT or IN A ROMP (26D: Going away); 
• no idea, at all, forever, what word followed COOL (8D: Hipsters) (honestly, "cats" is the only really acceptable "COOL" follower); 
• just stared at super-vague 43A: Tears and esp. 45D: Lift (SPREES and STEAL, respectively); 
• needed every cross to get SNOB and still barely understand it (43D: Expensive beer chaser?) (that clue is torturous—I think it wants "chaser" to mean both "follower" (i.e. of the word "beer," in a familiar phrase) and a word for someone who "chases" i.e. "seeks" beer that is expensive??? I get that you think that's clever, but clues don't work that way—it's completely convoluted); 
• who the f*** is DAN + Shay? (47A: ___ + Shay, Grammy-winning country duo); 
• had STOP SHORT and then (much more certainly) STOPS COLD before much later realizing it was STOPS DEAD (a phrase you just wouldn't use unless followed by "in his tracks" or some other phrase, whereas STOPS COLD, mwah, les mots justes!)

The long Acrosses were also hard to see, though I would've seen them sooner without all the trouble around them. Oh, I left out the worst one—a math joke :( question-mark :( :( clue for ON AVERAGE (33D: In a mean way?), which I figured was a prepositional phrase, which I was parsing as ON A ___. And again, that answer ran *right* through allllll the SE mess I just described.

Cluing was too much like a riddle book. [She took a seat to stand]. [It is avoided while playing it]. Sigh. I don't enjoy riddles when I'm doing crosswords. Or ever. ROSA PARKS was easy enough, and I got TAG pretty easily from crosses, but it's the principle of the thing. When a clue's sense of "fun" is way off from mine, it really affects puzzle enjoyment. Is JOE BOXER still a brand? I got that one easily, but as I did, I thought about how I hadn't thought about that brand name in ages. I think it's the name of an '80s band, too ... oh, well, yes, almost:

Didn't really know XIAN (51A: Easternmost point of the Silk Road), so minor struggle there. Stupidly misread the clue on "DUNE" and thought it wanted an *author* name (28A: First winner of the Nebula Award for Best Novel, 1965)—just stopped reading the clue at "Nebula Award." To me REPOST signifies a single post, which has absolutely no relationship to a meme (which, if it's a meme, then almost by definition you've seen it a lot, and probably in many different forms, in which case REPOST *really* doesn't work). BRIT was hard (10A: Adele or Ed Sheeran); wanted IDOL or STAR, which obviously is intentional on the part of the clue, ugh. Really hard to imagine someone exclaiming "I'VE DONE IT!" unless it's the 19th century. "I did it!" you'd say. Does ANO (year) not have a tilde in Portuguese? I guess that's one way to get around the year/asshole problem in Spanish, but unfortunately all it does is direct my attention directly toward the year/asshole problem in Spanish, so much so that I am writing this sentence. DIET POP sounds absurd (25A: Drink that may contain aspartame). "Pop" is fine and "soda" is fine, but with DIET, my ears only want SODA. And BLART ... sigh, I knew that one, but wow, not even a reference to the movie title in the clue (10D: Movie mall cop). I can't believe that movie (there were probably sequels, weren't there?) is going to leave a crossword legacy. Just didn't find very much to enjoy today. Grid is not terrible, just very much (especially in the cluing) not for me.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. ah yes, it seems many many (many) people were confused by how [Going away] could mean IN A ROMP. In sports, if you win something "going away" you win it easily, i.e. IN A ROMP (or A ROUT, or, weirdly, A WALK). 

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