Loose collarless shirt popular in India / MON 5-2-22 / Indigenous reclamation movement / Utah national monument called Shash Jaa' in Navajo

Constructor: Erik Agard

Relative difficulty: Medium (normal Monday difficulty)

THEME: "HANDY ANDY" — not really, but that is the actual name of an old movie (among other things) that would fit the theme, which is just two-word phrases composed of a 5-letter word + a 4-letter word, where the 5-letter word is identical but for a single letter up front:

Theme answers:

• NEVER EVER (17A: Not in a million billion years)
• BEAR'S EARS (31A: Utah national monument called Shash Jaa' in Navajo)
• HOVER OVER (41A: Be protective of, as a mother hen might)
• THIGH HIGH (58A: Like some fashion boots)

Word of the Day: KURTA (43A: Loose, collarless shirt popular in India) —

A kurta (or sometimes kurti, for women) is a loose collarless shirt worn in many regions of South Asia, and now also worn around the world. Tracing its roots to Central Asian nomadic tunics, or upper body garments, of the late-ancient- or early-medieval era, the kurta has evolved stylistically over the centuries, especially in South Asia, as a garment for everyday wear as well as for formal occasions. (wikipedia)

• • •

Simple concept, reasonably well executed. For a concept this simple, I'd've expected a bit more consistency among the themers. That is, I'm half-distracted by the fact that two of them rhyme, but the other two don't. It's low-key jarring, or maybe "discordant" is the better word. The themers themselves are also on the plain side, except for BEARS EARS, which is interesting and new to me. Actually, I like THIGH-HIGH as well. Hard to say THIGH-HIGH boots don't have enough sizzle. But overall, the theme doesn't have much pep. Simple themes can often pack a big wallop, entertainment-wise, and this one was just OK for me. I also really really wanted there to be something going on with the first letters of the themers (i.e. the one letter in the first word that is not in the second word). Yesterday's puzzle had a hidden message in it, and I think that primed me to look for a similar thing in today's grid, but all I got was NBHT, which I'm pretty sure is nothing. Ah well. Better to have a simple, unassuming theme with a tight, clean grid than some punny stretch of a theme with a wobbly grid. 

There were more words I'd never heard of before than I usually encounter in a Monday, but the crosses were all fair and the cluing easy, so I didn't feel like the puzzle was misslotted, i.e. despite containing unfamiliar terms, the puzzle still felt very much like a typical Monday in terms of difficulty. KURTA is a debut, so maybe it was unfamiliar to you, as it was to me. I know I've seen the term before, probably in some indie crossword (or maybe in one of the crossword's Erik himself edits over at USA Today), but it didn't stick. Hopefully by making it the Word of the Day today, I've increased its stickiness a little more. I already mentioned I didn't know BEARS EARS, and as for LAND BACK, I can't say I've never heard of the movement, I just don't think I knew its exact name (11D: Indigenous reclamation movement). I certainly needed help with the BACK part. Aside from that, the only difficulty was the difficulty I created for myself by twice (twice!) writing in answers that were Actually In Their Own Clues. That is, I wrote in ELGIN (!?) at 39A: Man's name that's an anagram of ELGIN (NIGEL) and then APWIRE (!?!) for 1D: Source of some wire stories. My brain just took in the letters of ELGIN as a chunk and didn't really process it as a name, so out of ELGIN I made ... ELGIN. And I wanted APNEWS but then thought, "wait, couldn't it be WIRE?" (by that point, I clearly wasn't looking back at the clue any more). Sigh. I also wrote in SEXTS before TEXTS (48A: Messages that might come with emojis), but that's totally understandable. Don't feel bad about that at all. Oh, and once again I was (briefly) undone by laugh syllables, ugh. Wrote in HARHAR instead of all the Has (see yesterday's puzzle for more on "Has" as a laugh-syllable plural) (41D: "You crack me up!" => HAHAHA). Ironically, my favorite answer in the puzzle was NOT A FAN (39D: Opposite of "I love it!"), though clue should read [Opposite of "Love it!"] for truly obvious reasons. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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