2007 black comedy directed by Frank Oz / THU 1-7-21 / Drum typically played with one hand / Thanks for noticing me character of kid-lit / Pope whose pontificate lasted less than one month in 1605 / Italian stratovolcano / Hindu honorifics

Constructor: Matthew Stock and Sid Sivakumar

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (typical Thursday—played Hard, then, once you got the theme, Easy)

THEME: STRIKE THAT (59A: Words of correction ... or a hint to 16-, 20-, 36- and 54-Across) — themers have the letter string "THAT" replaced by "XXXX" (so, "struck" out):

Theme answers:

• WIXXXXWIST (i.e. with a twist) (16A: Cocktail specification)
• DONXXXXE (i.e. "Don't hate!") (20A: "Get your negative energy outta here")
• DEAXXXXAFUNERAL (i.e. "Death at a Funeral") (36A: 2007 black comedy directed by Frank Oz)
• FELXXXXS (i.e. felt hats) (54A: Fedoras, e.g.)

Word of the Day: "Death at a Funeral" (36A) —

Death at a Funeral is a 2007 British black comedy film directed by Frank Oz. The screenplay by Dean Craig focuses on a family attempting to resolve a variety of problems while attending the funeral of the patriarch. [...] In 2010, Chris Rock, Tracy Morgan, and Martin Lawrence starred in a US remake of the same name, directed by Neil LaBute. Peter Dinklage returned to play the role of Peter, although the character was renamed Frank. The film was released on 16 April 2010 to mixed reviews. (wikipedia)

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***HELLO, READERS AND FELLOW SOLVERS!**. 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...

* * *

Ooh, I like this concept. Normally not the biggest fan of trying to show off by cramming your grid full of Scrabbly letters like X Q J Z etc., but this is a very purposeful and controlled X chaos. Also normally not the biggest fan of grid gibberish, but the strike-out gimmick makes this less gibberish, more ... occlusion? Anyway, I think it's a pretty nifty theme idea, and I think the grid as a whole largely holds up, given how much pressure those "X"s put on the grid. You wanna unleash sixteen "X"s on a grid, you better figure out how to contain them, i.e. keep them from forcing you into the land of Ugly Fill. Uncommon letters can have a cascading Bad effect, as fill opportunities narrow and sometimes severe accommodations are made. But today I only balked at a few fairly typical clunkers, like ALII and LEOXI (can't believe we escaped with only one pope or other Roman numeral-affixed leader, tbh). Obviously ALII doesn't have an "X" in it, but as I say, a Scrabbly bomb can reverberate, and ALII is "X"-adjacent. Anyway, the grid stays clean. The theme was funnish to uncover. There were some really fresh answers in there (EXOTOXIN, PROXY WAR). So despite the fact that I slipped and stumbled all over the place trying to get started, I ended up enjoying the solving experience quite a bit.

There's one thing, though... UV WAVE. Like ... really? A single wave is a "sunburn cause"??? "Oh, you're really red, must've been that ... UV WAVE ... that hit you ... that one time ... remember?" I've never seen UV waves in anything but plural form, and since the clue did not indicate a singular or plural answer, I went in a much more sensible direction at first, which is to say I went with a. a plural, and b. the word that most people use: UV RAYS. The "UV" was set early, and I "confirmed" the "A" with ANTE, and bam, that was that. It was so disappointing, later on, to find out that the real answer was this sad, lone UV WAVE. People call them "rays"! They only refer to them in the plural! So I don't know if that was a deliberate or accidental trap, but it felt cheap as heck. I was so locked in to UV RAYS that even when I hit a clue that obviously screamed ENO (27A: Brian in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame), since I had the answer starting with an "S," my only thought was "dang, who are the other Brians besides ENO?" Later, when I thought 13A: Big wheels (HUMVEE) was HUMMER, I found myself in an equally absurd position, staring at 14D: Italian stratovolcano, looking at the "R" I had in the first position, and wondering "dang, what are the other Italian volcanoes besides ETNA?" So basically ENO and ETNA (old friends) were shouting and waving their arms wildly, trying to warn me that I'd gone errant, but I just stumbled further in the morass.

Worst of all in that NW section, from a deeply personal standpoint, was the fact that I couldn't make heads or tails of the dang *cocktail* clue. I enjoy cocktails ~3x/week. I had a Negroni variant (made with Cynar instead of Campari) just last night. And you know what? My wife served it WITH A TWIST (orange) ... and *yet*, between trouble thinking of "specification" as a prepositional phrase, and the UVRAYS trouble, and the ... oh, yeah, I forgot to mention the OMAR trouble! I put in HUMMER (wrong) at 13A: Big wheels and then, when asked to think of a four-letter poet starting OM-, I went straight to OMAR (as in Khayyam) (it actually started OV- and was OVID) (7D: Poet who said "Let others praise ancient times. I am glad I was born in these"). So, yeah, throw that into the mix, and I had zero hope of figuring out what was going on in NW. Total disaster. So bad, in fact, that I actually decided to go straight to the revealer (i.e. to the bottom of the grid, where I imagined the revealer would be) and build the puzzle from there. Which I promptly did: ITS + ASSAY + SRIS + EXTRA + WRITER + KEA ... and then I could see STRIKE, which had to be followed by THAT (59A: Words of correction [...]). And since I did actually have all the "X"s in place in the NW, I knew immediately how the whole striking business was going to be expressed in the grid. It would still be a while til I discovered that UVRAYS and OMAR were wrong, but I had the key now, and getting to the end was pretty easy after that.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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