Protection of a protagonist for narrative purposes in slang / SAT 5-29-21 / Rum-soaked treats / Source of Vibranium in the Marvel universe / Exclamation popularized by Die Hard / Four-time Emmy winner from Coney Island

Constructor: Adam Aaronson

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: GARI (49A: Ginger at sushi bar) —

A type of Japanese pickle (tsukemono) made from thinly sliced ginger. The ginger strips are pickled in salt and are then pickled again in sweet vinegar. Gari has a natural pink color from the ginger root itself. It is available in Asian markets and it is most often served between sushi dishes. Gari should not be confused with beni shoga, which is another type of pickled ginger and is one that is not served with sushi. (recipetips.com)

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This was grueling at first, but at first it was 5 am and I'd been awake all of 15 minutes, so ... on a Saturday, probably not so unusual to feel this way at the start of the puzzle, given the circumstances. NW wasn't falling because PRIDE didn't have any "abbr." indication in the clue (1D: Annual June celebration). So annoying. PRIDE is decidedly a shortening, and clues should indicate that or else they are cheap and stupid. Also, here's the thing ... is this referring to the entirety of PRIDE month (June), or the annual PRIDE march in NYC (June 27), or what? Dunno. I think the clue is referring specifically to the NYC march, or maybe any PRIDE march, and not to the month as a whole (though at first I thought the month itself was the "celebration"). but exactly when and how long and in what context something called PRIDE occurs probably varies a lot from place to place. PRIDE events happen all month long, all over the world. I love the LBGT+ clue on PRIDE—just write a clue that indicates that we're dealing w/ a colloquial shortening and we're good. It's not hard! Here: [Annual June celebration in NYC]. That's it. Done. Perfect. By adding "in NYC," you've a. clearly indicated that it's a specific event that you are referring to, and b. clearly indicated that the answer is an abbr. And it only took five extra letters. Magic. (It's not magic)

Never heard of PLOT ARMOR so what was probably enjoyable to some was just a shrug to me (1A: Protection of a protagonist for narrative purposes, in slang). Stupid grad school, awarded me a Ph.D. in literature but never taught me the term PLOT ARMOR. Thanks a lot, UM! So yeah, waffled around up there, with little success. Then somehow glommed onto the "A" in MEA and got ATLANTA and started working on the SE, but again, nowhere. Speaking of the SE, that's the site of my one major problem with this puzzle: GARI crossing "YIPPEE-KI-YAY!" (24D: Exclamation popularized by "Die Hard"). About GARI: this is the first I'm hearing of it. Now, that's fine. New-to-me term, cool. But you have to understand that as sushi-related terms go, this one is much less well known than the others, so much so that it isn't even in the merriam-webster.com dictionary. NORI, that's there. WASABI, there. GARI, nope. And the wikipedia page for GARI is such a hot mess of bad writing and improper citation that I couldn't even use it in the Word of the Day definition, above. Go ahead and use GARI if you like—I'm actually happy to learn the term for the thing I've been eating all this time—but Every Cross Must Be Unassailable when you're dealing with new / uncommon / foreign words like this. And the "I" in "YIPPEE-KI-YAY!"!? That is not something I'd want anywhere near GARI. I've never had occasion to have to spell that stupid exclamation, and this spelling seems counterintuitive in many ways. "KI" makes what sound now? I would pronounce "KI" like the common English word "key." Also, when I hear the Bruce Willis exclamation in my head, I hear the end as "chi" (like the Greek letter) and "a" (like ... the letter). "KI-YAY" just doesn't reflect what's going on in my ears. In the end, "I" was the only good guess there, but the stupid spelling of that exclamation coupled with the unknownness of GARI really made that part awful to experience. Whereas if you'd decoupled these answers, there's a good chance that neither one would've bothered me at all. 

After the struggles in the NW and SE, I used the "Y" from YIPPEE to start working on the NE, and that fell much more easily. SW went down without much struggle either. So the puzzle was Hard-Easy in real time, but overall that makes it Medium, I guess. Mistakes: URGE before SPUR, EXES before SECT, STEADYCAM before STEAD-I-CAM or however it's punctuated (it's actually just one word). Hot Chelle RAE is a step up from the ridiculous Canadian ambassador to the U.N. RAE we got yesterday, but only a step (27A: Hot Chelle ___, rock group with the 2011 hit "Tonight Tonight"). 2011 was a while ago now (they haven't charted since). Again, RAE is crosswordese. It just is. No clue will fix that. Stick to familiar cluing byways and Move It Along. No one wants to struggle with your RAE clue. Crosswordese isn't always bad, though. Not sure where I'd be if ASP ERR ABET MEA ACAI and PSI hadn't been there to give me a boost. Slightly proud that I got PSI instantly from that clue, since I think it's designed to make you think of ECON, not air (45A: Inflation stat, for short) (I actually think the "for short" is redundant here, since "stat" is already an abbr.). Only thing I really love today is "AND YOU ARE ...?" But aside from the GARI / KI bit, nothing was terribly irksome. Overall, an OK Saturday experience.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. MANBUN = [Bunch of hipsters?] because if a "hipster" (???) wears his hair in a "bunch" on top of his head, that's what it's called. Not a fan of the derisive "hipster" here. 

P.P.S. PASYSTEMS = P.A. SYSTEMS, as in Public Address Systems (57A: Lines of communication in schools?). That one was hard to parse.

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