LGBT rights activist Windsor / SAT 6-4-22 / Senator after whom Honolulu's airport is named / Personal identifier in the Deaf community / Gram alternative / Popular half-hour sketch comedy of the 1970s-'80s with The / Onetime candy maker based in Revere Mass

Constructor: Scott Earl

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: DRAG MOTHER (33A: Mentor to a queen) —

When an aspiring drag queen is just starting out in the world, she needs someone to turn to for guidance, support, and makeup tips. When a more seasoned queen takes an ingénue under her wing, that usually means she becomes her “mother.” RuPaul herself is regarded as such a pioneer and trailblazer that many drag queens deferentially call her “mother,” as well.

It’s a beautiful mentor-apprentice relationship that can help a younger queen learn the tricks of the trade, including how to get bookings around her city. Most new queens find a drag mother by exploring the club scene or having friends in the community who dabble in the art. (fandom.com)

• • •

(33D: It gets hatched in a
fantasy novel)

Well it helps if Daniel INOUYE was a gimme for you, as he was for me. Whether you do or don't know that name probably made a Huge difference as to how easy this puzzle felt, at least initially. When I can plunk down the 1-Across answer with no help from crosses on a Saturday, that is typically a sign that not much resistance lies ahead, and while there was a lot more resistance than yesterday, overall this thing played very much on the Easy side. Probably no one wants to be reminded that INOUYE was repeatedly, credibly accused of sexual harassment, including by current NY senator Kirsten Gillibrand. Actually, that's not the worst of it. There are decades-old stories of sexual misconduct that is much worse than the groping Gillibrand described ("there were nine women I talked to who had told me stories of molestation and rape"). The guy was a WWII war hero, which probably bought him a lot of leeway and good will, but I can't see his name now without thinking about the serial sexual abuse of women by powerful men, so while I was thrilled to nail a Saturday 1-Across, I was not, actually, thrilled by 1-Across itself. In a puzzle that seems to be striving so hard for a warm and inclusive feeling, his name is particularly jarring. But back to the easiness: INOUYE opened up the whole NW, and things flowed steadily from there. Though ... you can see here that just as the puzzle was opening up, I made an error:

Since the [March word] is not really a "word" but more of a noise or grunt ... well, I always thought it was HUT, or at least thought HUT was an option. I know HUT is more, uh, football snap count, but .. I don't know, it sounds military to my ears. What about "Ten HUT!"? That's something, right? Yes! In fact, it's "used to bring a marching band or group of soldiers to attention" (wiktionary) (my emph.). Ugh. This exemplifies my experience of this puzzle as a whole, which is that the longer answers were generally a breeze, but I did get slightly bogged down in oddly clued short stuff, all of the place (not the most pleasant kind of struggle). Let's start with the absolutely absurd "PER year" (7D: ___ year). Any length of time might follow PER, as might "person," "capita," "annum," "axle," etc. Anything, really. Any unit. It's about the vaguest fill-in-the-blank I've ever seen. Really had to stop and think about that "P." Never really heard GEN Chem as an abbr. In college, it was O-Chem this and P-Chem that, but I don't remember anyone's saying GEN Chem. Isn't that just ... Chem? Anyway, I had GEO-Chem there at one point. I thought the CIA was some random CPA from, like, Topeka or something (32A: Actual employer of some "government consultants," in brief); tax pros might have to ... consult ... the government ... right? ... then I forgot that FOY was FOY and wrote in FEY as PER yoozhe, and then the puzzle did that pointedly obnoxious thing where it cross-references two intersecting clues in the vaguest way possible, effectively eliminating one of the crosses needed to get either of the two words (LOCK / KEY). So I enjoyed the longer fill a lot, but unlike on Friday, when the longer fill was really dominating my attention, today, these little 3-letter tar pits were making it harder to feel the whoosh and the zoom of the nice stuff.

But there was a lot of nice stuff, or at least no real weak stuff. Good colloquial energy in "YEAH, SAME" and "OH FORGET IT!" Bouncy slanginess with TIE THE KNOT and COOTIE SHOT. You've got the deaf community (NAME SIGN) and the drag community (DRAG MOTHER) and the pronoun trio (SHEHERHERS) and then, my personal favorite: ALONE TIME (by "favorite" I don't mean it's my favorite answer, I mean irl ALONE TIME rules! I love my family dearly but me without ALONE TIME is ... you don't wanna know. Let's just say "not peak me"). It's a solid grid overall, with lots of original fill. It's oddly free of the less common letters (Z X Q J ... even V). Couple of Ks and Ws are about the only crooked letters in this thing (I like "crooked letters," since it evokes the concept of a "crooked number" on a baseball scoreboard, where it refers to any number other than a zero or a one on a baseball scoreboard. Such numbers are literally crooked by comparison with "0" and "1", but also rarer by comparison, just as Z X Q J are rarer by comparison with other letters ... I'm gonna try using "crooked letters" instead of "Scrabbly letters" and see how that goes). Annnnyway, lots of RLSTNE action here today, but that doesn't keep the answers themselves from being fresh.  

Bullets:

• 19A: Formal name for 11-Down, in brief (ACA) — at this point, I had the "C" from NECCO (which I always think is NECCA, btw), and truthfully I knew immediately, without looking at 11-Down, that this was going to be ACA and that OBAMACARE must be lurking over at 11-Down. I didn't even bother to jump over and fill OBAMACARE in. I just knew it would be waiting for me, a ginormous freebie. Weird to just know that it was ACA with literally nothing specific in the clue.
• 55D: What might be a strain in a theater? (ARIA) — so a "strain" means a "tune" or "song," but also, yeah, I bet singing an ARIA is strenuous work.
• 57A: L.G.B.T. rights activist Windsor (EDIE) — literally just seeing this clue now. That's how easy this section of the puzzle was, I guess. EDIE Windsor (1929-2017) was the lead plaintiff in United States v. Windsor (2013), which was a landmark Supreme Court case concerning same-sex marriage, one that paved the way for the legalization of said marriages in this country following Obergefell v. Hodges (2015). It's Pride Month, so though she seems a worthy answer in general, it's especially nice to see her acknowledged this month.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]