Linguist Okrand who created Klingon / SAT 12-25-21 / Model and body positivity activist Holliday / Something suddenly fashionable / Sarcastic response to an attempt at intimidation / Subject of some MK-Ultra experiments / Units equal to 10 micronewtons

Constructor: Johan Vass

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: 12D: Dulcé SLOAN (12D: Dulcé ___, correspondent for "The Daily Show" beginning in 2017) —

Dulcé Lazaria Sloan (born July 4, 1983) is an American stand-up comedian, actress and writer. She is a correspondent for The Daily Show with Trevor Noah on Comedy Central. [...] In 2015, she was named a "New Face of Comedy" at the Just For Laughs comedy festival and won the 12th annual StandUp NBC comedy showcase. Her late-night comedy debut followed on Conan in February 2016. A few months later, she won the 2016 Big Sky Comedy Festival in Billings, Montana. Additional TV appearances followed on Comedy Knockout, The Steve Harvey Show., @midnight with Chris Hardwick, and as a correspondent for E! News Daily. Sloan joined The Daily Show as a correspondent in September 2017. Her Comedy Central Stand-Up Presents episode aired in October 2019.  // In voice work, Sloan is the voice of Honeybee in the Fox animated sitcom The Great North^[ and has been a panelist on the radio show Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!. (wikipedia)

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OWW is not a [Pained expression]. It is astonishing to me that you can be so creative in your grid design, so attentive to your au courant fill, and then blow it all on a three-letter atrocity. It's bad enough that I have to accept EWW (eww!) as a crossword answer, with its wholly arbitrary double-W; but now, having forced me to reluctantly accept EWW, you go and write a clue that suggests EWW, with an answer that ends in two "W"s, but that ... is not EWW? Instead, it's ... OWW. OWW. OWW? Hey, you know how I know that OWW is absolutely not a thing at all at all (at all)? Guess how many times OWW has been in the puzzle. Guess. Go on, guess. Guess. OK, are you thinking of a number? Is that number zero? Because zero is correct. Zero times before today. LOL, you debuted OWW!?!?! What is the opposite of "Congratulations"? Here we have this big, open grid filled with often quite interesting answers, but because you all thought you were gonna make OWW happen, we are talking about nothing but OWW. Well, I'm talking about nothing but OWW. And you wanna know why? See, it's not just because it's awful, which it is. Awful on its own is just awful. A passing blight. You look at it, wince, and move on. But today, because of where OWW is placed, it creates some real solve-wrecking potential. If, like me, you think the only acceptable -WW [Pained expression] is EWW (which, again, to be clear, before today, was 100% true), then you end up with PHO-E APPS at 1A: Things you might snap on, nowadays. And if you don't absolutely know that the [Model and body positivity activist Holliday] is TESS (I did not absolutely know that), then the combination of your certainty about EWW and the complete plausibility of PHONE APPS is going to carry the day. Nevermind that, in retrospect, TESS Holliday is a more plausible name than NESS Holliday (or Holliday NESS, I guess). We wouldn't be here, I wouldn't be here, if it weren't for OWW, which, again, is a fake non-thing that is fake. EWW is the only -WW [Pained expression] with precedent, PHONE APPS was plausible, so that was what won out. You can't invent [Pained expression]s, and you have to be super duper ultra careful about the *names* you use in a puzzle, *especially* if you're using them around invented [Pained expression]s. I no longer care that you got your cute THE NEW BLACK in the puzzle, or that I love Donna Summer. All the good vibes are gone. All I can see, all I can feel at the end of this solve is OWW. 

This puzzle is way too fond of names, especially current names. The things about names of the past is the past is more or less accessible to all of us, whereas the present, our present, with its heavily segmented and ensiloed popular culture, is a lot harder to get at if the proper nouns in question are not right up your damn alley. So ELENA DELLE DONNE is famous, for sure (not least because Erik Agard was wearing her jersey when he won the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament a while back), but her name is from Mars if you don't follow the WNBA (which it's very easy not to do, as it is with any sports league, and easier now than ever, given, again, the near complete eradication of any "common" culture in the internet era ... you used to know things just by being alive, because they were in the air, whether you wanted to know them or not; that "in the air" quality is harder to gauge now). Dulcé SLOAN is a cool new name, but that's gonna stump lots of people, including people who have watched "The Daily Show," tbh. Jason MOMOA is a star, but you can see how the pop culture density is rising with each of these names. And then there's the MARC clue, which is just self-indulgent (23D: Linguist Okrand who created Klingon = MARC) (?). No reason anyone should know that. Clue may as well just be [Man's name]. KEITEL was very much up my alley, and RAIMI, same, but again, you're really JAMPACKing names in today. Getting your difficulty primarily from know-em-or-you-don't trivia risks alienating solvers, and creating a less entertaining solving experience. You end up simply knowing (or not knowing) things instead of *figuring things out*, which is the more fun aspect of solving. Again, to be very clear—none of the names I've mentioned in this paragraph (except that Klingon guy, bah), including TESS (whom I've seen before, actually), are in and of themselves a problem. Individually, they are all grid-worthy. The problem is the careless spewing of so many names, all from a fairly narrow slice of very contemporary pop culture. It's a matter of balance, and careful handling.

"OOH, I'M SCARED" should really be "OOH, I'M SO SCARED!" if it wants to be properly sarcastic, so though I love the instinct there, the actual execution was a thud for me (31A: Sarcastic response to an attempt at intimidation). See also OH EM GEE, which is horrendous. I get that you want to be cute with your exclamation turned text-clamation turned back into "words," but no one in history has written OH EM GEE anywhere until I wrote it just now. Yeesh. SLEEVELESS DRESS made me LOL because it's the most conspicuous desperation 15, an answer that says "holy shit I'm trying to stack 15s what do I do what do I do ooh I know, all 1-point Scrabble tiles, yes perfect!" THE NEW BLACK and SHORTS WEATHER were great, though "spring" here in central NY is way Way too cold, generally for shorts (well, if you're old like me it is). JAMPACK and GODFORBID make another nice little stack. The shape of the grid is very cool. It reminds me of a rotary phone. I was briefly worried there was going to be an actual phone theme. But no. Just the cool shape. So there was a lot to like here. But again, to reiterate and sum up: OWW. 

Merry Christmas and/or Happy Saturday!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. didn't know what MK-Ultra was so I looked it up just now and, oof, it's grim (28A: Subject of some MK-Ultra experiments). Not sure "illegal human experimentation" is really the vibe you want to put out there on Christmas Day, but everyone celebrates in their own way, I guess...

P.P.S. just snuck a look at my wife's completed puzzle, and guess what? Total. Vindication:

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