Traditional garment in West Africa / WED 7-27-22 / Scandinavian drinking cry / What Lao-tzu said is hidden but always present / Fictional world entered through a wardrobe / Represent as a designer at a fashion show / Open to the thigh as an evening gown / Clearwater's neighborhood across the bay / Meaty bone for a dog

Constructor: Enrique Henestroza Anguiano

Relative difficulty: Easy (extremely)

THEME: fashion is critical! — articles of clothing (real or imaginary) that act as negative metaphors for a kind of "person":

Theme answers:

• SCAREDY PANTS (20A: Cowardly person)
• BLACK HAT (27A: Villainous person)
• EMPTY SUIT (35A: Ineffectual person)
• TURNCOAT (49A: Traitorous person)
• STUFFED SHIRT (54A: Pompous person)

Word of the Day: TRAPS (1A: Shoulder muscles, in gym lingo) —

The trapezius is a large paired trapezoid-shaped surface muscle that extends longitudinally from the occipital bone to the lower thoracic vertebrae of the spine and laterally to the spine of the scapula. It moves the scapula and supports the arm.

The trapezius has three functional parts: an upper (descending) part which supports the weight of the arm; a middle region (transverse), which retracts the scapula; and a lower (ascending) part which medially rotates and depresses the scapula. (wikipedia)

 

• • •

OK, when I say "SCAREDY" you say "___"! SCAREDY! ___! SCAREDY! ___!  

If you said "CAT!"—hello, we are of the same ILK.

The whole "wait, it's not CAT?" thing was a fiasco, but it was also the only part of the grid that gave me any difficulty whatsoever. This played like a Tuesday shading into Monday. I kinda wish I were still timing myself, because I wasn't really trying to speed and I still think I would've broken 3 minutes today (extremely, near record-breakingly fast for me on a Wednesday). I wrote in DELTS at 1A: Shoulder muscles, in gym lingo (TRAPS), that slowed me down for a few seconds right out of the gate. DELTS is a perfectly good answer for that clue, it's just ... well, lots of muscles connect to the shoulder, it turns out. But TOT got rid of DELTS and RNA got me TRAPS and then after getting waylaid in PANTSville for a bit, nothing else stood in my way. And even getting waylaid in PANTSville wasn't so bad, as all those long Down PANTS crosses were super easy. Or the Acrosses were super easy, and so the Downs were easy. I wrote in "THERE!" instead of "TRY IT!," that cost me maybe five seconds (29D: "Have some!"). But everything else was transparent. Most of the fill was common, repeater-type stuff (APED and ANAIS and ATIT and the like), but it was clean enough. As for the theme, I think it's pretty lovely. The metaphors got somewhat more familiar to me as the grid went on, with BLACK HAT and EMPTY SUIT being semi-familiar but not terms I'd use, and TURNCOAT and STUFFED SHIRT being familiar terms I wouldn't hesitate to use myself. There's a great consistency to this set, as the phrases don't just *end* with clothing (like endings being a conventional thematic premise), but stand, as a whole, for a kind of person. Clothing metonyms! Actually, only some of these are metonyms (where an attribute of a thing stands for the thing). BLACK HAT, EMPTY SUIT (actually, "SUIT" = "executive" is a paradigmatic example of metonymy). STUFFED SHIRT is more a metaphor, and actual SCAREDY PANTS don't even exist ... anyway, I'm in the weeds now. These are all clothing-based metaphors used to describe kinds of (flawed) people. The end. Nice.

I wish there were more to talk about. I could go off about what a great actress GENA Rowlands is and how much I always enjoy seeing her, even if you could argue her name falls under the general rubric of "Crosswordese." Greatness transcends "Crosswordese," imho. This is why I can never really be that mad at CHER or ADELE, no matter how many times I see them. I was reading about the rise of Tiki culture in California in the mid-20th century and the writer (Kevin Starr) dug back to its 19th century roots, when America's fascination with Polynesia began. Why is this relevant? Because he brought up Melville's classic tales of the South Seas, "OMOO" and "TYPEE,"  and honestly I nearly teared up because I hadn't seen them in so long. Those titles used to be All Over the grid. If you started solving in the last century, then one of the first things you learned, if you didn't know it already, was that Melville wrote "OMOO" and "TYPEE" and they were going to be your constant companions on your journey into griddom. Now ... they've gone the way of the ASTA. And that's good, I guess. It's good that grids got fresher and more diverse, and it's good that I lived long enough to actually get *nostalgic* for "OMOO" and "TYPEE." So "OMOO" and "TYPEE," if you're out there, I miss you guys. Call or write some time. Well, write. You probably don't have phones. MESSAGE in a bottle, maybe? Anyway, think about it.  

Last things:

• 45D: Put a ring on it (EAR) — I think you'd probably say "in" rather than "on," but you want your Beyoncé reference, I get it. 
• 6D: Represent, as a designer at a fashion show (WEAR) — I liked this and SLITTED (40D: Open to the thigh, as an evening gown) and CAFTAN (8D: Traditional garment in West Africa), which I saw as nice accompaniments (accessories?) to today's theme. It's warm out, why not WEAR a SLITTED CAFTAN!
• 30D: Glace after melting (EAU) — I had to scan and rescan this clue because I kept thinking I was misreading the first word. Then I thought "why don't I know that word?" And then a bit later I realized I did know that word—it's just a French word (for "ice"). French crossing French here (ETOILE) is probably not ideal. But not likely to trip many people up, I don't think.

See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. there are good reasons why I write this blog day in and day out, and one of them is that occasionally readers send me beautiful, personal notes, like this one (received just this morning, shortly after I posted today's write-up):

Dear Michael,

Longtime reader, first time writing to you. My daily routine is to solve the puzzle on my commute from Dutchess County into NYC, read your writeup, and then get to work. This morning, however, your mention of Kevin Starr has made me somewhat wistful and nostalgic. Dr. Starr was my favorite professor while a student at the University of Southern California—he would commute from San Francisco to Los Angeles each Monday morning and return home each Friday afternoon. I was a geology major who took one of his classes at the recommendation of a friend, and his impact was so profound that I ended up adding a history minor and eventually dropping geology from my life altogether (I ended up in the rare postage stamp business). 

Dr. Starr’s enthusiasm and charisma was unlike anyone else I’ve ever met in my life—I still keep a copy of Frank Norris’s The Octopus on my desk at all times, which he wrote the introduction to and autographed for me. One of my classmates was Robert Towne’s daughter, which led to many wonderful discussions about Chinatown (which, while technically off-topic, seemed perfectly fitting for a class about the history of California). Dr. Starr passed away while I was saying my own goodbyes to my grandmother in the hospital, and their deaths are forever linked in my mind and my heart. 

I guess the purpose of this email is twofold—first, to express my gratitude for the entertaining write-ups over the last five or so years I’ve been reading, and second to thank you for bringing to mind a truly great man who changed the course of my life.

Best regards,
Charles Epting

I love that puzzles make me think, feel, and remember things, completely unpredictable things, and that my posts might do the same for others. It's so nice to have this community. Thank you.

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