Fire safety technique / MON 12-13-21 / Terse request to a bartender / Elves have big ones stereotypically

Constructor: Tomas Spiers

Relative difficulty: Easy (maybe Easy-Medium if you somehow don't know who BRIE LARSON is)

THEME: STOP, DROP AND ROLL (65A: Fire safety technique ... or 17-, 29- and 49-Across together) — three theme answers, each of which is a type of stop, drop, and roll, respectively:

Theme answers:

• RAILROAD STATION (17A: Grand Central, for one) (the STOP)
• MARKET CRASH (29A: Event of October 1929) (the DROP)
• CINNAMON BUN (49A: Pastry with a swirl) (and the ROLL)

Word of the Day: BRIE LARSON (3D: Star of "Room" And "Captain Marvel") —

Brianne Sidonie Desaulniers (born October 1, 1989), known professionally as Brie Larson, is an American actress and filmmaker. Known for her supporting roles in comedies as a teenager, she has since expanded to leading roles in independent films and blockbusters. Larson is the recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award. In 2019, Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world. [...] Larson's breakthrough came with a leading role in the acclaimed independent drama Short Term 12 (2013), and she continued to take on supporting parts in the romance The Spectacular Now (2013) and the comedy Trainwreck (2015). For playing a kidnapping victim in the drama Room (2015), Larson won the Academy Award for Best Actress. The 2017 adventure film Kong: Skull Island marked her first big-budget release, after which she starred as Carol Danvers / Captain Marvel in the 2019 Marvel Cinematic Universe superhero films Captain Marvel and Avengers: Endgame. (wikipedia)

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***HELLO, READERS AND FELLOW SOLVERS in SYNDICATIONLAND (if you're solving today's puzzle in January 2022, that's you!)*** . Happy Newish Year! 2022! I hope you are holding up during these cold, dark days. It's early January, which means it's time for my annual week-long pitch for financial contributions to the blog. Every year I ask regular readers to consider what the blog is worth to them on an annual basis and give accordingly. 

2021 was an important year for me, as my blog (this blog, the one you are reading right now) turned 15 years old! [noisemaker sounds!!!!]. That's a lot of years old. For a blog, anyway. 15 is also a pretty important crossword-related anniversary—maybe the only important crossword-related anniversary. The standard US crossword grid is 15x15, and now Rex Parker is also 15! Rex Parker, spanning the grid to give you the constant variety of crossword commentary: the thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat (dum dum dum DUM!) The human drama of ... OK now I'm just channeling Jim McKay from the '70s-era introduction to "Wide World of Sports," but I do hope this blog has provided some insight, some entertainment, some commiseration, some solace, some sense of regularity during what are obviously pretty tumultuous and often lonely times. I hope it has enhanced your solving pleasure, giving you something to look forward to even (especially?) when the puzzle lets you down, and someone to celebrate with when the puzzle is wonderful. If it's also given you someone to shout at in disagreement, that's OK too.

A lot of labor goes into producing this blog every day (Every. Day.) and the hours are, let's say, less than ideal (I'm either solving and writing at night, after 10pm, or in the morning, before 6am). Most days, I really do love the writing, but it is work, and once a year (right now!) I acknowledge that fact. As I've said before, I have no interest in "monetizing" the blog beyond a simple, direct contribution request once a year. No ads, no gimmicks. Just here for you, every day, rain or shine, whether you like it or, perhaps, on occasion, not :) It's just me and my laptop and some free blogging software and, you know, a lot of rage, but hopefully there's illumination and levity along the way. I do genuinely love this gig, and whether you're an everyday reader or a Sunday-only reader or a flat-out hatereader, I appreciate you more than you'll ever know.

How much should you give? Whatever you think the blog is worth to you on a yearly basis. Whatever that amount is is fantastic. Some people refuse to pay for what they can get for free. Others just don't have money to spare. All are welcome to read the blog—the site will always be open and free. But if you are able to express your appreciation monetarily, here are two options. First, a Paypal button (which you can also find in the blog sidebar):

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Rex Parker c/o Michael Sharp
54 Matthews St
Binghamton, NY 13905

I'll throw my Venmo handle in here too, just in case that's your preferred way of moving money around; it's @MichaelDavidSharp (the last four digits of my phone are 4878, in case Venmo asks you, which I guess it does sometimes, when it's not trying to push crypto on you, what the hell?!)

All Paypal contributions will be gratefully acknowledged by email. All snail mail contributions will be gratefully acknowledged with hand-written postcards. I. Love. Snail Mail. I love seeing your gorgeous handwriting and then sending you my awful handwriting. It's all so wonderful. Last year's thank-you postcards featured various portraits of my cat, Alfie, designed by artist Ella Egan, a.k.a. my daughter. They were such a hit that I asked Ella to design this year's thank-you postcard as well, this time featuring both my cats. And this is the result. Behold this year's thank-you card: "Alfie and Olive: Exploring the Grid":

We went back and forth on whether she should add more black squares to make the grid look more plausibly fillable (that's a Lot of white space), but in the end we decided not to crowd the jumping (or hanging?) Olive with more black squares, and instead just to leave the card as is, with the idea that the cats are exploring a grid that is ... under construction. Anyway, this card is personally meaningful to me, and also, I believe, objectively lovely. I can't wait to share it with snail-mailers (and oh, what the hell, if you are a PayPal / Venmo donor and you want one too, just say so in the message). Please note: I don't keep a "mailing list" and don't share my contributor info with anyone. And if you give by snail mail and (for some reason) don't want a thank-you card, just indicate "NO CARD."  Again, as ever, I'm so grateful for your readership and support. Now on to today's puzzle...

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21A: Music genre often labeled "heavy"

Yes, this works. Those are indeed a stop, a drop, and a roll. It's a cute little gimmick. Simple, with clever and easy-to-grasp wordplay. Just the right concept for a Monday. I have one little complaint. I'm not sure it actually rises to the level of complaint. There's just one part of the theme that seems weaker than the others, for somewhat subtle reasons, and so it's kind of barking at me a little. I wonder about MARKET CRASH for a couple of reasons. First, there must have been a gajillion kinds of "drops" out there that you could've used. MARKET CRASH is indeed vivid, but somehow it doesn't veer as much away from the literal meaning of "drop" as the other answers veer away from their verbs. The verbs "stop" "drop" and "roll" are imagined as nouns in the theme answers, but the only one of the three answers that really takes the wacky misdirection to heart is CINNAMON BUN. That answer is in another galaxy from the revealer's meaning of "roll," and I love it. This is repurposing / reimagining wordplay the way it's meant to be. Really take the word in a completely different direction. Leave the building. Go for it. It's good. RAILROAD STATION is a place where a train "stops," so the change of meaning there is much less wild, but mostly what I think of is the station, not the act of stopping, so ... that one gets a semi-reluctant pass from me. But something about MARKET CRASH is too literal a drop. An act of going down. There are other kinds of "drops"—raindrops, for instance, or small amounts ... I dunno, album releases. The themer here just doesn't veer away from the revealer's meaning enough for me. Part of the problem is that it actually includes the word that is synonymous with "drop" (CRASH). Part of the problem is that CRASH is way, way stronger than a mere "drop." Yes, it's in the drop category. But the phrase MARKET DROP is a thing, which makes you (me) aware that MARKET CRASH is really something else ... and yet still a fall, a descent. I just wanted this answer to go to a much more different meaning of "drop." That's all. This is fine. It's Monday, it's easy, no one cares, I know. But I will shout about craftsmanship and elegance every chance I get, whether anyone else notices or not. 

Hell, I spent about ten minutes making the northern section of this puzzle only about 25% better, just because the inclusion of FOIE bugged me (partly because force-feeding geese to produce a "delicacy" disgusts me, partly because if you don't need French you should mostly avoid French, partly because CFO wasn't doing anyone any favors...). I find myself always wishing that constructors would polish their grids just a little more (sometimes a lot more, but mostly just a little). Like, I get distracted by the "Z" in the southwest because I think "that's Scrabblef***ing"; that corner is not improved by the "Z," it really isn't. The way I know is: that corner has PSST *and* ATTA. Weirdly PEZ would make it instantly a notch better because PEZ (unlike PAZ) is not a name partial and ETTA beats ATTA any day. But honestly, the whole thing should probably be rebuilt without PSST or ATTA. It's such a tiny corner that I'm certain it can be done. Might try getting rid of OLDE there in the SE while you're tearing out small corners. All the parts I'm talking about, all the tiny things I'd change, they are absolutely acceptable, but only that. They're things you put up with. But unless the grid is challenging to fill, unless the theme is demanding or the long fill really splashy, you shouldn't have to put up with below-average stuff in the short fill. Normal names and words, as often as possible. But as I say, it's Monday, the puzzle's easy, the theme is cute, and no one's looking in the corners for dust the way I am. I get it. Again, I say, this is good work. I'll take a decent theme with Just OK fill any time on a Monday, or with any theme. Themes are hard. But still, please, constructors, as much as you can without driving yourself insane: polish the grid, even the short parts that you think no one's going to care about. Thank you.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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