Situ's love in Hindu lore / THU 6-17-21 / Vedic religious text / Accouchement / Frontal or lateral speaking features / Mary whose short story The Wisdom of Eve was the basis for 1950's All About Eve / Whence the Portuguese creole language Patuá / Historical lead-in to evna or evich / Finishing touch on the first transcontinental railroad

Constructor: Blake Slonecker

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: FISH / HOOK (1D: With 11-Down, what each of this puzzle's groups of circles represents — four theme answers end in a FISH HOOK shape—the hook is represented by circled squares, and each "hook" contains the name of a four-letter fish (so, answers shaped like a FISH HOOK, last four letters are a literal FISH (name) HOOK):

Theme answers:

• GAME CONSOLE (4D: Xbox or PlayStation)
• GOLDEN SPIKE (8D: Finishing touch on the first transcontinental railroad)
• MILKSHAKE (37D: Drink that might be served with a metal cup)
• UPANISHAD (38D: Vedic religious text)

Word of the Day: Accouchement (25A: Accouchement = LABOR) —

: the time or act of giving birth (merriam-webster.com)

• • •

I didn't enjoy this one all that much. This probably has something to do with the fact that I didn't see the fish-name gimmick until after I was done, so for most of the solve, I had this dragging "so what?" feeling. You figure out the deal with the theme answers themselves very early, with FISH / HOOK giving it all away at the top of the grid there. Since I got FISH / HOOK very easily, I figured, well, the answers hook, that's what the circled squares represent, ta da, the end. I didn't really top to think "wait, why *these* answers?" until I was finished, and finishing mostly meant dealing with a ton of overfamiliar short stuff (SSNS and AROD and INSTA ESTES ASADA KEA SNL etc. and somehow QUA *and* ERAT?), or short stuff with deliberately toughened clues, like the clues on ORR, say (28A: Mary whose short story "The Wisdom of Eve" was the basis for 1950's "All About Eve"), or LABOR (25A: Accouchement)—I figured "Accouchement" had something to do with sleep ... but then it was LABOR, and I was like "huh, that's work, work's not sleep," and *then* (when I finally looked it up) I was like "ohhhh ... that LABOR"). I liked DIASPORA (5D: Group migration), and the theme answers themselves are pretty colorful, but there was just too much 3-4-5 stuff for me to get much of a joyful rhythm going, and it's hard to get terribly excited about something like INK STANDS. I see now that the FISH / HOOK theme has its two layers, and I think it's reasonably clever. But the actual solve was kind of plodding and by-the-numbers. 

Beyond "accouchement," I only had a few other trouble spots. The first was actually right up top, with the clue on FROG (1A: Animal symbol of fertility in ancient Egypt). I've been doing crosswords so long that I I thought for sure I was familiar with all the ancient Egypt-related animals. Your ASPs and your ibises and scarab beetles and what not. But don't ever remember FROG being clued this way. Even after getting -RO- I could think only of CROC, which seemed wrong on several levels. So I had to hack a lot to make FROG show up. But by far the biggest obstacle for me today was MILKSHAKE, or, rather, MINT JULEP, which is what I wrote in there after getting that initial MI-. Was that a planned trap, because wow it felt perfect. MINT JULEPs are, in fact, served in metal cups sometimes, and MINT JULEP fit perfectly. I felt so powerful dropping MINT JULEP down off the MI-. I like MINT JULEPs, I like figuring out long answers from just a few letters, it was a huge win-win. Until it wasn't. Now, I also like MILKSHAKEs, but, as with the order in which they appeared in my puzzle today, MILKSHAKEs finish second to MINT JULEPs in the 9-letter MI-drink category, for sure. Last obstacle today was spelling UPANISHAD correctly. First of all, I'm used to hearing them referred to collectively: the UPANISHADs. So having just one here was slightly disorienting. But more disorienting was the "I," which I had as an "A"—very glad I eventually caught STYLA there at 55A: Accessories for tablets and changed it (to STYLI). 

Five more things:

• 
  CAT PEOPLE (23A: Ailurophiles) — "CAT PEOPLE" is a classic Val Lewton horror movie; you can clue CAT LOVERS as [Ailurophiles], but you cannot pass up a Val Lewton horror movie title when you have your shot at one, because, I mean, when is "I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE" ever going to appear in a grid, realistically? Also, clue VAL as Val Lewton. Also, LEWTON, VALLEWTON, all VALid answers. 
• TSAR (56A: Historical lead-in to -evna or -evich) — I had IVAN :(
• MALLORCA (7D: One of las Islas Baleares) — the biggest of the Balearic Islands, which are spelled "las Islas Baleares" here because the answer has the Spanish spelling of the island (two L's) and not the English (a J)
• LISPS (25D: "Frontal" or "lateral" speaking features — well at least the puzzle isn't mocking speech disorders today, as it so often has
• KALE (48D: Trendy ingredient in a healthy smoothie) — stop treating KALE like it's some hipster fad. The "trendy" bit here is *$%&ing annoying and completely embarrassing. [Ingredient in a healthy smoothie]—you see how that works just fine, right? KALE is a really healthy leafy green vegetable and it's everywhere, in all kinds of things, all the time. Eat it, don't eat it, whatever, but this weird thing where people treat a simple green leaf like a "lifestyle choice" is beyond me.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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