French conductor Boulez / TUE 12-8-20 / Where the sheep is in Little Boy Blue / Gare de l' Paris railway station / Complete stranger slangily / Bird whose beak inspired Darwin's theory of evolution / Venomous snakes with zigzag patterns on their backs / Fancy notebook brand

Constructor: Enrique Henestroza Anguiano

Relative difficulty: Medium to slightly harder than Medium (high 3s?)

THEME: POLAR OPPOSITE (37A: One totally unlike another ... or what each answer on the edge of this puzzle has?) — pairs of edge answers are opposites in terms of meaning *and* are physically opposite one another in the grid 

Theme answers:

• WORK / PLAY (1A: 9-to-5 activity / 69A: Off-hours activity)
• ABOVE / BELOW (5A: In heaven, say / 68A: In hell, say)
• HARD / EASY (10A: Like a Saturday crossword / 67A: Like a Monday crossword)
• OLD / NEW (23D: Like the year you ring out on December 31 / 43D: Like the year you ring in on January 1)
• DEPART / ARRIVE (13D: Take off, as a plane / 44D: Land, as a plane)

Word of the Day: BEERY (6D: Drunken, in a way) —

1: affected or caused by beer beery voices

2: smelling or tasting of beerbeery tavern  (merriam-webster.com)

• • •

***HELLO, READERS AND FELLOW SOLVERS IN SYNDICATIONLAND (if the date is Tuesday, January 12, 2021, that's YOU!)!***. The calendar has turned on another year (thank God), and while that might mean a lot of things to a lot of people, for me it means it's time for my annual week-long pitch for financial contributions to the blog. Every year I ask regular readers to consider what the blog is worth to them on an annual basis and give accordingly. Last year at this time, I wrote about what a melancholy year 2019 was; my oldest dog had died and the world was kind of a wreck. And then 2020 happened, and I learned what a real wreck looks like. In February, my other dog died (R.I.P. Gabby). And then, well, COVID. And let's be honest, even with a new president, 2021 is going to be, uh, challenging as well. But I hope that the regular ritual of solving crosswords brought some solace and stability to your lives this past year, and I hope that my blog added to your enjoyment of the solving experience in some way. This year my blog will celebrate its 15th anniversary! I feel so proud! And old! A lot of labor goes into producing this blog every day (Every. Day.) and the hours are, let's say, less than ideal (I'm either solving and writing at night, after 10pm, or in the morning, before 6am). Most days, I really do love the writing, but it is work, and once a year (right now!) I acknowledge that fact. As I've said before, I have no interest in "monetizing" the blog beyond a simple, direct contribution request once a year. No ads, no gimmicks. Just here for you, every day, rain or shine, whether you like it or, perhaps, on occasion, not :) It's just me and my laptop and some free blogging software and, you know, a lot of rage, but hopefully some insight and levity along the way. I do genuinely love this gig, and whether you're an everyday reader or a Sunday-only reader or a flat-out hatereader, I appreciate you more than you'll ever know.

How much should you give? Whatever you think the blog is worth to you on a yearly basis. Whatever that amount is is fantastic. Some people refuse to pay for what they can get for free. Others just don't have money to spare. All are welcome to read the blog—the site will always be open and free. But if you are able to express your appreciation monetarily, here are two options. First, a Paypal button (which you can also find in the blog sidebar):

Second, a mailing address (checks should be made out to "Rex Parker"):

Rex Parker c/o Michael Sharp
54 Matthews St
Binghamton, NY 13905

And heck, why don't I throw my Venmo handle in here too, just in case that's your preferred way of moving money around; it's @MichaelDavidSharp (the last four digits of my phone are 4878, in case Venmo asks you, which they did that one time someone contributed that way—but it worked!)

All Paypal contributions will be gratefully acknowledged by email. All snail mail contributions will be gratefully acknowledged with hand-written postcards. I. Love. Snail Mail. I love seeing your gorgeous handwriting and then sending you my awful handwriting. It's all so wonderful. And my thank-you postcards this year are really special. They are portraits of my new cat Alfie (a bright spot of 2020), designed by artist Ella Egan, a.k.a. my daughter. And they look like this:

He's eating kale in that middle one, in case you're wondering. Anyway, these cards are personally meaningful to me, and also, I believe, objectively lovely. I can't wait to share them with the snail-mailers. Please note: I don't keep a "mailing list" and don't share my contributor info with anyone. And if you give by snail mail and (for some reason) don't want a thank-you card, just indicate "NO CARD."  Again, as ever, I'm so grateful for your readership and support. Now on to today's puzzle...

* * *

Conceptually interesting, in that "opposite" plays out in two ways. I do object to POLAR, in that only ABOVE and BELOW are truly polar opposites, positionally. I also don't really like the winky crossword clues on HARD and EASY. Getting in your little self-congratulatory meta-cluing isn't worth sacrificing the clue phrasing pattern you've got going on: on hours, off hours; heaven, hell; ring out, ring in; take off, land ... but then Monday, Saturday? Those aren't "opposites." Yes, Monday *NYTXW* tend to be (relatively) easy and Saturday *NYTXW* tend to be (relatively) hard, but that pair needed a better set of clues more in keeping with the others. More oppositey. The fill is iffy in places, but mainly it's just very PLAIN. A few long Downs give it a little zazz, but those highly, highly segmented areas, yikes, it's just a bunch of sequestered short stuff. The grid shape is the easily the most irritating thing about the puzzle. Having only the tiniest of passages into the corners, particularly the NW / SE, makes the puzzle lose its sense of flow; it's no fun to have to dive into a corner that is wholly cut off and where nothing more interesting than 3- and 4-letter words are happening. But everything is the way it is to accommodate a pretty elaborate theme, and I think the thematic payoff warrants the cost in dull short fill / grid segmentation. 

Having DEVIL in the grid made me want ANGEL in the grid. Also weird that DEVIL is up next to ABOVE consider ABOVE is clued as [In heaven, say] (hell, where you might expect to find the DEVIL, is down BELOW). PLAIN makes me want  FANCY. MICRO, MACRO. Etc. Can of worms, this theme. Not sure why this played a little slow, but it did. Part of that was grid segmentation (really is a speed-killer for me). Part of it was theme cluing—because the clues had to follow this kind of singsongy oppositey phrasing pattern in every case, they were not always as direct or straightforward as you'd expect short answers in a puzzle to be. Then there's the clue on ITERATION, which makes no sense to me (21D: Method of successive improvement). I guess in math (?) there's some def of ITERATION that involves a sense of "improvement," but the basic def of ITERATION has zero to do with "improvement." It's just a repetition, or a (new) version or incarnation. Improvement not implied. So, yuck. Also, I had ITERATING at first, which made the SW corner icky to get into. Took me a bit to get SOTOSPEAK because I didn't have the first letters, because (again) of the grid segmentation. I could've just jumped up into the NE corner and tried to solve my way back out, but, again, I like flow. I hate just jumping into a corner where I've got nothing if I don't have to. Clue on EST was baffling to me (32A: Gare de l'___, Paris railway station). Spelled DITZY with a (correct) "Z" and not the much dumber "S" (50D: Bubbleheaded). No major trouble. A very plausible Tuesday experience overall.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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