Parisian sweets? / FRI 6-10-22 / Blogroll assortment / Root vegetable with stringy stalks / Scientist for whom a part of the brain is named / Common condiment with fajitas

Constructor: Blake Slonecker

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: Pierre Paul BROCA (42A: Scientist for whom a part of the brain is named) —

Pierre Paul Broca (/ˈbroʊkə/, also UK: /ˈbrɒkə/, US: /ˈbroʊkɑː/, French: [pɔl bʁɔka]; 28 June 1824 – 9 July 1880) was a French physician, anatomist and anthropologist. He is best known for his research on Broca's area, a region of the frontal lobe that is named after him. Broca's area is involved with language. His work revealed that the brains of patients with aphasia contained lesions in a particular part of the cortex, in the left frontal region. This was the first anatomical proof of localization of brain function. Broca's work also contributed to the development of physical anthropology, advancing the science of anthropometry.

• • •

I have been complaining (a bit) that the late-week puzzles don't really have much TEETH any more (by which I meant BITE, I think, not [Show of authority, metaphorically]). So you'd think a Friday clued somewhat more toughly than usual would bring me joy—and it might, in theory, but this ain't it. No flow. No zoom. No real marquee fill that I can see. It all just feels rather flat. I think we're supposed to be impressed that there is a longish triple-stack crossing *another* long triple stack of equal dimensions. And now I'm noticing something else that we're probably supposed to OOH at—that is, that the symmetry isn't just 180-degree rotational (typical), it's actually 90-degree rotational (black squares stay in the same place with every 90-degree rotation). So though its grid structure is not exactly flashy, what we have here is a low-key architectural stunt with very little going on at the level of content. The fill was fine, it just wasn't exciting, and the cluing didn't help much. In short, instead of the zoom-zoom whoosh-whoosh experience I look forward to on Fridays, I got something of a slog. An inert hunk of words that has the external appearance of a Friday crossword, but none of the excitement. 

Ironically, the hardest part of the grid for me was, in fact, TEETH. Not because I couldn't understand TEETH, but because I couldn't understand the apparent plural in 2D: Parisian sweets? (CHERIE), which I had rendered as CHERIS, reasoning that if "my sweet" is one person, well then "sweets" is more than one. My dear ones, mes CHERIS, makes sense, moving on ... unfortunately, what I was moving on to was TSETH. And yes, that is a nonsense "word," but the whole "metaphorically" part had me thinking maybe it was some modern slang I didn't know, or something like that (is it a one-syllable exclamation, like "TSETH!," or ... rapper named Seth trying to style himself after T-Pain? I was prepared to believe many things). I had SHORE and actually wanted TEETH at some point, but pulled both out when CHERIS made that whole section seemingly impossible. I also forgot the last letters of the [Root vegetable with stringy stalks]. CELERITY? No. CELERIUM? No. CELERI...AN? No, you're thinking of Valerian. I literally just now *already* forgot CELERIAC, so improbable do its last letter seem to me (seriously, I tried to recall the correct answer without reconsulting the grid sitting on the desk just to my left: failure). CELERIAC sounds like something rabid celery fans might call themselves. After these NW troubles, the puzzle just sort of chugged along at a somewhat slower than usual rate, though the SW went down like a Tuesday and the SE like a Monday, so I guess I can add "very uneven in terms of difficulty" to the list of less-than-ideal features. I had BARGING INTO before INON (and I wanted BURSTING -something earlier in the solve, when I thought it was CELERIUM). COUNTERACTS also gave me some trouble since I didn't have the first letter (that CELERIAC really did a lot of damage). No other errors of note. 

[please replace "Valerie" w/ "Celery," thank you]

Bullets:

• 10D: Some customer service agents nowadays (CHATBOTS) — this is one of the two answers that feel most fresh and modern in this puzzle, but since CHATBOTS are such a dreary and depressing and dehumanizing part of life, I can't say I'm too thrilled to run into them here.
• 15A: "Sounds good, but ... huh-uh" ("YEAH, NO") — this is the fill winner today, by a country mile. A perfect, common, apparently self-contradictory colloquialism. I say some version of it all the time. I love when the puzzle captures weird quirks of speech like this.
• 29A: Like Gen-Z fans of classic rock, seemingly (BORN TOO LATE) — this whole concept doesn't really have the resonance it might have at some pre-internet, pre-streaming, pre-universal music access point. If you're 20 and want to listen to classic rock, it's easily accessible. It's everywhere. OK, your friends aren't into it, maybe, but so much of being young is in fact veering away from the crowd, or trying to. Anyway, BORN TOO LATE implies you're missing out on something, and while you might wish you had been alive to be part of some scene (to have experienced Woodstock, or, I dunno, peak mall culture), the music itself is ubiquitous. You live in an age where you don't even have to *try* to find out about it and listen to it. There it is. In abundance. 
• 22A: Blogroll assortment (SITES) — the very word "blogroll" feels like it's covered in cobwebs, or, like, moldering in a weedy and overgrown field somewhere. Blog culture peaked somewhere in the late '00s, and I honestly haven't thought of this term since ... well, maybe since they got rid of Google Reader. Usually, if you have a list of SITES in your sidebar, you've given them some more meaningful thematic label.
• 1A: Puzzling start? (ACROSS) — I don't get it. Yes, I "start"ed with this clue, which is an ACROSS clue, but I don't get how ACROSS is a "start," necessarily. At all. I thought this answer was going to be a prefix at first. But no. This is an awfully forced "?" clue. I don't even know what kind of wordplay they were going for. I often "start" with the Downs, if the first ACROSSes are all really long. Sigh. "?" clues should make sense! [Puzzling start?] is a good clue for PEE and that's about it.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. "Key & PEELE" was a hit sketch comedy show, hence 8D: Key partner? (PEELE). Jordan PEELE, Keegan-Michael Key.

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