Queer heroine in the DC universe / SAT 6-18-22 / Best-selling novel that begins in Pondicherry India / 19th-century activist Dorothea Dix / Performance in Studio 8H / Peshwari raisin-filled fare / Audible finger wags / Fitness activity done while suspended in a hammock

Constructor: Brooke Husic

Relative difficulty: Easy 

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: NAT Adderley (62D: Jazz trumpeter Adderley) —

Nathaniel Carlyle Adderley (November 25, 1931 – January 2, 2000) was an American jazz trumpeter. He was the younger brother of saxophonist Julian "Cannonball" Adderley, whom he supported and played with for many years.

Adderley's composition "Work Song" (1960) is a jazz standard, and also became a success on the pop charts after singer Oscar Brown Jr. wrote lyrics for it. [...] While he was an integral part of the Cannonball Adderley Quintet, this was not the only project occupying his time in his career as professional jazz musician. Since moving to New York, he had been recording outside the Adderley group. He worked with Kenny Clarke, Wes Montgomery, and Walter Booker.

Other projects included the film A Man Called Adam (1966). In the film, Sammy Davis Jr.'s character plays the trumpet. Since Davis could not himself play the trumpet, Adderley was hired to ghost everything that the character played. (wikipedia)

• • •

I tend to enjoy Brooke's puzzles (you can see her bylines at The New Yorker and the American Values Club Crossword and all kindsa places), but I think I've done (or tried to do) one too many of her Extremely Hard "experimental" crosswords from her puzzle website, because even though I smile when I see her name, some part of me experiences a Pavlovian flinch, like "oh no ... trouble!" But it turns out that her mainstream puzzles are probably no harder than anyone else's puzzles, actually. They're just far more thoughtful and entertaining than the average fare. I know I'm going to get stuff from outside my specific wheelhouse (SKINCARE ROUTINE stuff, or contemporary pop culture stuff, or maybe science/tech stuff—Brooke's a scientist), but also enough inside-my-wheelhouse stuff (today, comics, ancient libraries, yoga, Macbeth) to make the puzzle feel familiar and welcoming. What I'm saying is that the puzzle manages to have a specific personality while also feeling broadly inclusive. It casts a wide net with its answers and cluing. Sometimes, some younger constructors make puzzles that, to me, feel fresh and new, but in a kind of clique-ish and exclusionary way, like they're meant to be a kind of "f*** you" to some imagined group of "traditional" solvers. This puzzle, however, manages to have something for everyone, while still proudly wearing its values on its sleeve (lots of women, lots of queer visibility, and for Brooke, if I remember correctly, no meat, no guns). Will no doubt deserves some credit for the balance, but it starts with the constructor, and this one is Reliable.

I tried not to get too excited or hopeful when the puzzle just *gave* me BATWOMAN at 1A: Queer heroine in the DC Universe. I used to have a BATWOMAN figurine ("action figure?") on display in my home office (i.e. where I am right now), but I really Marie Kondo'd this place recently and lots of the knickknackier-type stuff went into storage. Anyway, I became a BATWOMAN fan sometime between when she was rebooted in the comics (as said queer character) and when she eventually got her own TV show. I have largely put superhero comics / movies behind me now, but I will always have a fondness for her. Her comics were fun to read because they had that cool noirish Batman vibe but it wasn't all the same boring, billionaire, "avenge my parents' death" stuff over and over and over. BATWOMAN felt like a real person with real problems. But enough of this NERDFEST ... back to crosswords! (LOL). I am one hundred percent sure that I have seen CHIWETEL EJIOFOR in some puzzle pretty recently ... but apparently still not 100% on the spelling. I was like "ooh, it's CHIWETE ... er, ends in -OR or maybe -FOR? ... damn it!" Luckily the crosses were all fairly simple. That "J" was the last letter to fall:

Also needed a bunch of crosses to see SKINCARE ROUTINE, but again, those crosses came quickly and in abundance, so no real struggle was involved. My one big miss was an experiment that I knew was likely to fail, but I wanted to plug it in and see. I had TIME IS... at 60A: "We don't need to rush" ("TIME IS ON OUR SIDE") and wrote in TIME IS OUR FRIEND. Mwah, perfect fit. But I should've remembered Kurt Russell's famous words in Vanilla Sky:

[I've never actually seen this movie, what in the hell is happening!?]

This massive misstep wasn't so massive, since I knew it was a risk and was always willing to pull it quickly if need be. And need did be, although I did try to "confirm" TIME IS OUR FRIEND by writing in TENNIS at 47D: Match point? (TINDER). No dice, though, ultimately.

Pretty sexy vibe to this one, or ... at least there's lots sex-related stuff. From BATWOMAN's queerness to PAN-sexuality to TINDER "YOU UP?" ACHING RAWNESS SNOGging ... I wanna say JUMPS ON and NAIL should be in there too. So yeah ... WOW, just WOW, a lot of heat, a lot of FIRE in this one. Good morning. And good day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. TINDER (47D: Match point?) is a dating app, i.e. a "point" where one can make a "match," in case that wasn't clear.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]