Pseudonymous children's author Hunter / FRI 8-13-21 / Bit of metal texturing / Father of Hecate

Constructor: John Guzzetta and Michael Hawkins

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (??? ... still jetlagged)

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: HAPTICS (9D: Study of touch, as with smartphone screens) —

1: the use of electronically or mechanically generated movement that a user experiences through the sense of touch as part of an interface (as on a gaming console or smartphone) (merriam-webster.com)

• • •

Hello, everyone. I am back from my family vacation. Families vacation, actually, as I spent the first part with my dad and that side of the family in San Diego, and the latter part in Colorado with my mom and sister (my sister was also in San Diego ... we have the same parents, it turns out ... it's 5 in the morning and I'm still on western time and I haven't written a sentence on a standard-sized keyboard in almost two weeks, so today's write-up might be a little bumpy). The vacation was wonderful and terrible in equal measure. It started with a positive COVID test for one of the thirteen people staying in our San Diego vacation home, so that was terrible, obviously. She was vaccinated, but she had also been in Tennessee :( so ... honestly, the vaccine can do a lot, but apparently it's only so effective against Tennessee (as of today, only 39.8% of the population fully vaccinated, compared to 58.1% in New York and 64.6% in Massachusetts, way to go, folks!). Good news: since the COVID-positive person was vaccinated, she got better *fast*—one day she was in bed all day, the next, she was up and surprisingly chipper and ready to drive herself half the length of California, back to her own home and bed. She was sick sick no more than 48 hours. But anyway, we were all exposed in maskless situations inside the house (and cars), for sure, so we all had several days of waiting before we could get reliably tested, but good news again—all the other twelve people in the vacation house came back negative (all vaccinated, of course). So the vacation started terrible, but honestly, it could've been so much worse. The vaccine was the difference between inconvenience and disaster. And the rest of the trip was mostly great. We left San Diego early and drove to Colorado, in order to get out of a potential sick house. So we got a bonus trip to Santa Fe out of the deal, which was pretty sweet. Colorado itself, always gorgeous. Possible future home for us. We'll see. Anyway, I hadn't seen my parents for two years, so I'm really glad I took care of that.

Speaking of disaster: the NYTXW stopped offering the puzzle in .puz format, which means you can no longer solve on 3rd-party apps (off-line), so I have to solve on the truly awful website interface from now on. Ugh. I get that the .puz format is outdated and limited, but it's also industry standard, and until you develop a new standard (you're the NYT, you roll around in crossword money, why Don't you develop that?), .puz is the format a lot of solvers use (with software like AcrossLite or, in my case, Black Ink). But now for the NYTXW I have to go in and fix all the settings so the cursor moves correctly (-ish), and the stupid music doesn't play and the timer goes away and the puzzle doesn't do the little "halfway!" cheer (actually, not sure if I can disable that; will investigate). If you always use the app or always solve on paper then none of this will mean much to you, and that's fine, but you probably also shouldn't have much of an opinion about it, since you can't know how it affects others. I won't go on much now, as I am bleary and still haven't gotten to today's puzzle, but I'm cynical about this decision. It's a business decision, not a puzzle-quality decision. It's about keeping everything in-house, including solving data. There were definitely things that .puz files couldn't do, visually, that the app can—the fancy tech-enabled flourishes that paper solvers will (blissfully) never experience, where certain answers light up or boxes change sizes at the end or whatever. But these flourishes occur in a small minority of puzzles. Most puzzles are still (and will likely continue to be) the same as they ever were. And  as a user experience, the NYT app / website is decidedly Not an improvement (if it were, I'd've been using it already). So now I'm forced to solve in their proprietary environment. And I can't even print out a finished puzzle. I can print out a finished grid (just the grid!?!?!?!) but not the finished puzzle with clues and all. If I can do the former, I should be able to do the latter. Also, if I'm on a word, say SOIREE, and my cursor is on the already-filled-in "S," and I've got SOIR- in place, there is no way to jump directly to the next empty square. If I (re-)type in "S," the cursor should jump to the next empty square, but it won't. I can get it to jump filled squares if I am already in a *blank* square, but if I'm in a filled square, followed by other filled squares, it Will Not Jump Them. This may seem like a teeny detail to you, but oof, when you're used to a more sensible and responsive interface, it's a super-annoying little hiccup. But this is the way the world is, for now. I'll adapt. But again, don't let anyone tell you this is for the betterment of puzzles. This is about control and, ultimately, as with all business-driven decisions, profit. If they wanted to make a genuine, substantial change, one that would really revolutionize crosswords ... well, let's just say that the .puz format is not the thing they'd get rid of.

This puzzle seems fine. Took me forever to solve because of the total unfamiliarity of the solving interface. I think I'll be printing the puzzle and solving by hand now, which will be slower, but I'm fast, so ... I can take the extra minute or two if it means not having to argue with the dumb website software. I especially like today's NW corner, which was very hard for me, with STAR TURN being the only longish answer I could get for a while. ROAST and NOTE (with same clue), both slow to come. SOWS and ABIT, both weirdly hard for me. And I had HMM before UHH, which, as mistakes go, is somehow on the more depressing end of the spectrum (6D: [Thinking ...]). No one likes misguessing, but misguessing moans or grunts or other non-words with indeterminate spellings always leaves a particularly bad aftertaste. Nothing in the rest of the grid is as sparkly as the NW, though SHOESTRING CATCH is fairly dazzling (in American football, it's a catch you make somewhere around the altitude of your shoestrings, i.e. a catch you barely make, often athletically impressive and visually spectacular). 

That SARAN clue is old as the hills, please retire it (51A: That's a wrap!). Also, retire KNURL, as no word that ugly should exist out of whatever professional context gave birth to it. Back to the limited scope of your argot, KNURL! (36A: Bit of metal texturing). Only word that threw me for real was HAPTICS, which feels like a word I know, but ... well, it isn't. I've probably seen it. It's got a familiar face. But it sounds like a lot of things, like OPTICS and TRIPTIKS (remember those!?... the maps of your planned travel routes that you'd get AAA to prepare for you, before GPS / phones took over!? ... good times) (oh, looks like they still exist, but they're just not, you know, paper). Oh, I have to admit that I don't really know who PERSES is. I know the add-a-U version, i.e. PERSEUS, but PERSES ... no (60A: Father of Hecate). He's a Titan who is noteworthy solely for fathering Hecate. I think MAV / VERSES beats MAP / PERSES (the combo with the obscurity should always lose), but I guess someone really wanted that SEA / MAP cross-reference for some reason, so ... here we are. THC / CAGER is also noteworthy for not being something simpler (i.e. THE / EAGER), but in that case, I think the "C" is probably the better choice, if only because it gives a little nod to the classic crosswordese CAGER (31D: Baller, in old lingo). I like the idea of CAGER as this old dude just sitting off in the corner, getting high, remembering the old days ... "You should seen some of the sh** ASTA would get up to, man ..."

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. A MEET-CUTE is a convention of romantic comedies, describing the initial meeting of the couple involved. (59A: When Harry first shared a ride with Sally, e.g.)

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