TV roommates for 50+ years / FRI 1-29-21 / Indian lentil dish / Creature in Liberty Mutual ads / Apt name for a yoga instructor / Article of attire akin to a tarboosh

Constructor: Robyn Weintraub

Relative difficulty: Easy (maybe too easy? I mean, that's not a terribly valid criticism, but I really wish I'd been timing myself because this felt close to the 3-minute mark)

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: Tarboosh (1A: Article of attire akin to a tarboosh => FEZ) —

A tarboosh is a man's hat that is typically made of felt. It has a flat top, no brim, and fits firmly on the head. It is commonly worn by Muslim men, either by itself or under a turban. The tarboosh also often has a silk tassel attached to the top. Red is the most common color for this hat.

Derived from the Persian word sarpush, meaning 'headdress,' the tarboosh is also known as a tarbush. It has also been called a fez and a checheya. The fez is a hat originally only produced in Fez, Morocco, and is slightly smaller than a tarboosh. Regardless of the name, all hats of this type have a similar truncated cone shape, that narrows as they extend upward from the head. (wisegeek.com)

• • •

Few things are as reliably good as a Robyn Weintraub Friday crossword. Even with my rage-response set to ultra-sensitive, I don't know that this puzzle would set off any alarms. Whatever crosswordese there is ... is scattered and unremarkable. I mean, what? ATRA? Maybe ATTY? What's in this puzzle that's gonna make you mad, make you ugh or eye-roll? Whatever it is, there ain't much of it. Maybe I wouldn't put two initialisms right next to each other? (SPCA / AARP). You can see, you have to really reach to find fault today. The one issue—which I mentioned at the very tiptop of the write-up—is that it's soooo easy. I know those of you who struggle to finish a Friday hate hearing stuff like this, but truly, relative to even a normally breezy Friday, this one felt toothless. Resistance-free. What little green ink there is on my puzzle print-out merely indicates an occasional slight slow-down. No actual battles or bafflements. It's nice to have to wrestle with a puzzle at least a little. I know that's what Saturday's for, and I do love crushing a Friday, or any day, but this one almost didn't feel like a worthy opponent. But only at the difficulty level. In every other way, it's worthy as hell. Smooth, clean, lively, broadly accessible. Oh, I am gonna ding it for introducing me to the term "Lubrastrip," which is a particularly off-putting bit of adspeak. A horrid portmanteau? A snortmanteau? Portmant-d'oh!? I managed not to see that clue at all while I was solving, and I was so much happier in the before-Lubrastrip time. Still, even Lubrastrip can't eliminate the warm glow that this lovely puzzle leaves behind.

Hardest part of the puzzle was probably 1A: Article of attire akin to a tarboosh, as I didn't know what a tarboosh was. First instinct was HAT (close!), but "akin to" didn't feel right. Seemed like tarboosh might be a "type of" HAT, but not "akin to" a HAT, so my brain switched to some more specific article of clothing and ... well, it's a crossword we're solving here ... three letters ... so ... OBI? Maybe a "tarboosh" was some kind of non-Japanese sash, I wrongly thought. Checked 1D: Achievements, instantly guessed FEATS, and as soon as the "F" went in, I thought, "oh, it's FEZ." And it was. And once you've got a "Z" in an initial position on a long answer at the top of your grid, well, hold on to your tarboosh because you're about to take off. Whoosh. High speeds, no looking back. 

Here are the little bits of resistance the puzzle offered:

• 22A: Spacewalk, e.g., in NASA shorthand (EVA) — I was pretty sure that the BERT of BERT AND ERNIE was an "E" BERT (!) and not a "U" BURT, but I thought, "better check the cross." And then the cross was this. I knew it wasn't UVA, so cool, but I totally forgot what EVA was "shorthand" for. It's "Extravehicular activity." So I didn't "forget" what EVA meant so much as "never knew until this second." Cool.
• 49D: Symbol of opportunity (DOOR) — this was eerily vague to me, and it ran right through a *bunch* of answers I was not entirely sure about. I've seen "Sweeney Todd," but ___ Lovett didn't evoke anything for me, and it seemed such a bizarre way to clue something simple like MRS. that I didn't write the "R" in despite having the "M" and "S." Further, I had PARENT but didn't yet know HOOD, and CRISIS but wasn't yet sure of MODE (though I had at least tentatively written it in). I actually had to reach over and get DONE DEAL at 49A: "100% happening!" in order to get the "D," and then write in -HOOD at PARENTHOOD and then take a second to look back at DOO-, which had to be DOOR, which left me with MRS. Lovett, which seemed entirely plausible. Easily the roughest part of the grid for me (by normal Friday standards, not that rough). 
• 45D: Spacecraft activity (FLY-BY) — clearly space is my enemy today. I think of planes doing FLY-BYs, not spacecraft. Eventually got the two "Y"s and then saw the answer. Parsing short two-word answers can be difficult, since you only ever expect to see a one-word answer in a space that small. See also SUM UP (26D: Recapitulate), which took a few crosses to get.

That's it. Everything else was read-it / fill-it. We had YOGA MAT very recently, didn't we? (yes: yesterday) So the MATT clue was not as tricky as it might've been (10D: Apt name for a yoga instructor?). I have never seen "The Sound of Music" (it's true!), but I damn sure know LIESL, a favorite of crossword constructors for her highly common letters in uncommon configuration (not much ends -SL). Didn't know DEPP did the voice of the title character in "Sherlock Gnomes" (whatever that is) but I had D--P before I ever saw the clue, so my eyes only got as far as [Actor who voiced...]. That was enough. Loved all the long stuff, esp ZERO CHANCE, EXTRA SPICY, BERT AND ERNIE, SECRET RECIPE ... at this point, I'm just writing out all the long answers, so let's just say all of them. Everything 8+. This is a model puzzle, the cluing difficulty of which could've been turned up a notch. Good day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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