Foe of Skeletor in Masters of the Universe / FRI 7-22-22 / French phrase with a grave accent / Unit of the Swedish krona / World's leading saffron producer / Latin lovers officially speaking / Japanese-based electronics giant

Constructor: David Steinberg

Relative difficulty: Challenging (Mediumish overall, but two tiny sections stopped me cold for longish periods of time)

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: CARAWAY (23D: Relative of fennel) —

1: a biennial usually white-flowered aromatic Old World herb (Carum carvi) of the carrot family

2: the pungent fruit of the caraway used in seasoning and medicine

—  called also caraway seed (merriam-webster.com)

• • •

Never really found my grip with this one. Something about the cluing wavelength—mainly that I was nowhere near it, at any time. Occasionally this felt like a good Friday, but that whooshing of wonderful answers, that flow, that pop pop of good surprises—that never came today. Felt like I was working for everything, and without much "aha" payoff. WHOOPEE CUSHION is kinda funny, but even there, the awkward syntax of the "?" clue made it feel a bit forced. Also, I spelled WHOOPIE like that, so that's no good. I kept waiting for something to really kickstart the party, but I kept getting just OK stuff like LEMON SAUCE and WORK OF ART and CARAWAY and BRAIN GAME—you can't fault any of those things, but there's no standout there. Very much enjoyed seeing WHITNEY HOUSTON, but that may very well be because I got that answer so much easier than most other things in this puzzle. But the real truth is I don't remember much of the top 2/3 of this puzzle. I hacked away at it, made progress, plowed through ... not terribly remarkable. But the bottom was a complete disaster, and the worst kind of disaster, which is to say that the cluing on short fill made it impossible (for me) to see, and I came to total standstills, twice (this normally doesn't happen even once on a Friday). 

The less significant standstill was in the SE, where AHOY THERE was a promising gateway to the far corner, but then ... oof. HAS A ___ (40D: Flips). Really seemed like it should be HAS A COW. The puzzle was so devoid of good colloquialisms that I thought, "ah, here we go." So ... HAS A COW. You'd think the short fill in that corner would've helped me fix that error quickly, but no. I have no idea where saffron comes from, really, and instead of the "O" from COW seeming wrong, the "R" from AHOY THERE seemed wrong, because OMAN seemed ... a plausible saffron producer (it's kinda near IRAN, is my defense) (56A: World's leading saffron producer). TEXT had an inscrutable "?" clue on it (59A: Comment from one who's all thumbs?). TAX clue was super ambiguous (53D: Line on a receipt). The FETA I've eaten doesn't usually come in "slices" (52A: Slice in a salad, maybe). Wanted CUKE there. The only answer I felt pretty sure of down there was ANT, and it wasn't helping. It was so bad that I sincerely doubted AHOY THERE, which does seem awfully ... informal. Would you really have to add "THERE"? I dunno. It was all gummed up. But eventually I pulled COW and thought and thought and then tried FIT and voilà, problem solved.

The next dead stop, though, was much longer, and caused by something much tinier (ultimately). And again, the problem is due entirely to the clue trying Very hard to be a pain in the ass. So, this is what I was looking at:

In retrospect, of course, I'm thinking "well, just write in TOY, dummy" (50D: Barbie, e.g.). But here's the problem. I actually wasn't looking at this version of the grid most of the time. What I was looking at was just the one blank, above the "O." The other blank I had confidently filled with a "C" because ACES is the only correct answer for 58A: Pros. I really don't understand trying to engineer your puzzle for difficulty in this way. You've already put in the completely absurd ORE clue right next door (one that, thank god, I knew from having solved crosswords for decades) (51D: Unit of the Swedish krona). It's like the puzzle *wants* this specific, tiny area to be a pain to get through. But the clue on AYES, I resent, mostly because it so nakedly wants you to think ACES. It's infinitely more appropriate for ACES. I don't know what my reaction was supposed to be when I found out it was AYES. "That's clever"? My reaction was "I can't believe I wasted minutes of my life for so little." I will admit that I overthought the Barbie clue, but with the kind of cluing this puzzle was throwing at you, you can't really be blamed for overthinking. My mind was racing around for other kinds of "Barbies," but after Australian barbecues, I was out of ideas. And I didn't actually see the Barbie clue until *after* the "C" was (I thought) safely nestled in place at the end, inside of ACES. But when things didn't work, I started questioning everything. I was never fully sure of "LISTEN TO ME!" I started doubting HOMES (which has its own really awkward / non-intuitive clue) (45D: Divisions of subdivisions). And POPES, ugh, once I got it, I didn't doubt it, but do they really "love" Latin? (42D: Latin lovers, officially speaking?). "Officially speaking" is doing a lot of weird and unclear work there. Eventually I patiently ran the alphabet for the Barbie clue and saw TOY and then saw AYES and then shook my head very slowly and disappointedly. If the puzzle had given me delight in the longer answers, I would resent this fussiness and over-striving in the short-fill cluing a little less (side note: there are *Eight* (8) question-mark ("?") clues in this one, which is ... a lot). But as it is, I spent almost all my time on these little disasters, and so frustration and annoyance are all I'm really left with in the end.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. an observant reader showed me something and now I'm showing you

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