Flower that shares its name with a sea creature / WED 2-3-21 / Bookend letters of Google Maps appropriately / Japan's largest lake located NE of Kyoto / Civil rights icon who led historic march from Selma to Montgomery on 3/7/1965 / First sitting prez to fly in an airplane / Sue who wrote the so-called alphabet series

Constructor: Yacob Yonas

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium 

THEME: JOHN LEWIS (35A: Civil rights icon who led a historic march from Selma to Montgomery on 3/7/1965) — theme answers are related to Lewis's career and activism:

Theme answers:

• NON-VIOLENCE (16A: Principle of the type of activism practiced by 35-Across)
• GEORGIA'S FIFTH (19A: Congressional district represented by 35-Across from 1987 to 2020)
• FREEDOM RIDERS (53A: Group including 35-Across that protested the segregation of public buses)
• GOOD TROUBLE (58A: Oxymoronic coinage of 35-Across)

Word of the Day: BIWA (37A: Japan's largest lake, located NE of Kyoto) —

Lake Biwa (Japanese: 琵琶湖, Hepburn: Biwa-ko) is the largest freshwater lake in Japan, located entirely within Shiga Prefecture (west-central Honshu), northeast of the former capital city of Kyoto. Lake Biwa is an ancient lake, over 4 million years old. It is estimated to be the 13th oldest lake in the world. Because of its proximity to the ancient capital, references to Lake Biwa appear frequently in Japanese literature, particularly in poetry and in historical accounts of battles. (wikipedia) ... ALSO ...

The biwa (琵琶) is a Japanese short necked lute, often used in narrative storytelling. The biwa is the chosen instrument of Benten, goddess of music, eloquence, poetry, and education in Japanese Buddhism. The biwa is a plucked string instrument that was first popular in China and then spread throughout East Asia. It is said to have arrived in Japan from China during the Nara period (710–794), and is even thought to have roots that trace back to Persia. It is generally 60 centimetres (24 in) to 106 centimetres (42 in) in length and made from wood. The instrument consists of a water drop shaped body with a handle, and while there are generally four strings, five stringed varieties also exist. In Japan, the biwa is generally plucked with a bachi instead of the fingers, and is often used to play gagaku. In addition, it is used as musical accompaniment when blind monks recite scriptural texts, or when reciting The Tale of the Heike, a war chronicle from the Kamakuraperiod (1185–1333). (wikipedia). 

• • •

Straightforward tribute puzzle. Lewis makes a very worthy subject, of course, but this type of puzzle always feels flat to me. Pick a subject, pick some things related to that subject that fit symmetrically in a grid, done. You can do this for any famous person. There's just not much to it. I did think that the theme answer set was pretty lively—GEORGIA'S FIFTH is original, and the closer, GOOD TROUBLE, is fantastic. But puzzle-wise, there's not much here but a list. No playfulness, no trickery, none of the things that make the puzzle interesting at the *puzzle* level. As an example of the type, this is good. I just don't care for this type of puzzle very much. Also, my god if I never hear the term BITCOIN again it'll be too soon. I thought this puzzle was about *NON*-VIOLENCE, but then you went and made me think about tech billionaire BITCOIN bros. Just CRUEL, really. I did enjoy seeing AOC and the and all. And JAMIE Foxx. And NARUTO (it's a really popular manga title, but I wonder if it's really well known to NYTXW solvers yet). Speaking of comics, John Lewis co-wrote one called "March," a trilogy about his life in the Civil Right Movement. It's very popular and extremely well regarded. Worth (re-) reading this month.

I struggled a bit today in both the NW and SW corners. I love BANG OUT as an answer (3D: Do quickly, as an assignment), but wow I had trouble picking it up. BEAT OUT and then BASH OUT were keeping BANG OUT out of the picture until I got the first two themers up there. So that was a struggle I came out of happy. The struggle in the SW ended less happily. BIWA is totally new to me (37A: Japan's largest lake, located NE of Kyoto). Seems a fine answer—it's geographically significant in a number of ways. But there's nothing inferrable about it, so I needed every cross. Which leads me to BAD FATS (37D: Butter and margarine, nutritionally speaking). Bah. It's the clue, really, that threw me. If you tell me "nutritionally speaking," I expect something more specific and less slangy than BAD FATS. Also, man I hate the moral coding of fat, or anything related to food. In short, It never occurred to me that something as casual and common-parlance as BAD FATS would be the answer, considering nothing in the clue suggested the answer would be slangy or colloquial. In fact, "nutritionally speaking" appears to point me in the opposite direction—toward something more precisely scientific. So FATS wasn't hard, but the BAD part was both hard and, ultimately, disappointing. 

ANNA Deavere Smith has been in a ton of shows, and her name is really familiar, but I couldn't place her today, especially without any specific information to go on beyond her name (you could throw a "West Wing" or "Nurse Jackie" or "black•ish" in there ... something) (6D: Actress ___ Deavere Smith). Could not process the clue on GPS (9A: Bookend letters of "Google Maps," appropriately); bookends are, almost by definition, symmetrical, and so the idea that the "G" (on the one hand) and the "PS" (on the other) of "Google Maps" might be thought of as "bookends"??? No, that did not track. Outside the theme, the answers that pleased me the most were POP TRIO and (ironically) OLD GAG. Just good, colorful middle-length phrases. Sometimes you find enjoyment in unexpected, smallish things. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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