Self-esteem from the French / SAT 9-10-22 / Jukebox crooner with the 1965 hit 1-2-3 / Blues singer Monica Parker / Co-host of 1970s program People Are Talking

Constructor: Kameron Austin Collins

Relative difficulty: Challenging

THEME: my ignorant ass — it's a themeless, actually

Word of the Day: LEN BARRY (17A: Jukebox crooner with the 1965 hit "1-2-3") —

Leonard Warren Borisoff (June 12, 1942 – November 5, 2020) known professionally as Len Barry, was an American recording star, vocalist, songwriter, lyricist, record producer, author, and poet. [...] As someone who sang rhythm and blues, he recorded hits in 1965 and 1966 for Decca Records in the US and released by Brunswick Records: "1-2-3", "Like a Baby", and "I Struck It Rich", a song he wrote with Leon Huff of the Philadelphia International Records producers, Gamble and Huff. // His first two hits also made the Top Ten of the UK Singles Chart. "1-2-3" reached number three. Those songs also peaked at number 2 and 27 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart respectively. "1-2-3" sold over four million copies, and gave Barry his second RIAA gold disc and a Grammy Award nomination for Contemporary Rock & Roll Male Vocal Performance. Both "1-2-3" and "Like a Baby" were composed by Barry, John Madara, and David White. // He performed at the Apollo Theatre in New York; the Howard Theatre in Washington, D.C.; The Regal Chicago, Chicago; Illinois; The Fox Theatre (Detroit) in Detroit, Michigan; and The Uptown (Philadelphia), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He also toured with Sam Cooke, The Motown Revue in the United Kingdom, and appeared on Top of the Pops.// He became a major singing star in The United Kingdom. Highlights of his European tour included featured performances at the London Palladium and Royal Albert Hall as well as numerous appearances throughout England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. // Barry's respect for the Native American culture led him to write and produce the instrumental "Keem-O-Sabe". The song went to number 16 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1969 for The Electric Indian. (wikipedia)

• • •

See, this is the problem with taking away my Friday themeless—I have no warm-up puzzle that allows me to prepare for the Saturday. You need Friday to get you in the right mindset for Saturday, especially when the Saturday is a (gigantic grizzly) bear like this one. But instead I got that bizarre and relatively easy TETRIS concoction. That puzzle did nothing to prepare me for *this* puzzle, which fell on me like a ton of bricks or lead weight or collapsing roof (we're currently having our roof replaced, so let's go with the roof metaphor). I felt out of shape doing this puzzle, or like I hadn't stretched properly or something. Even though I had flashes of brilliance right out of the box (dropped ASS right in (1D: Something you might haul) and saw through the ADVERB clue pretty quickly (1A: Now or never)), the only thing I wanted to put in front of "decimal" was "Dewey," not DUO- (2D: Lead-in to decimal), but worst of all ... did you know that STITCH and SUITOR are the same length and have three letters in the same position? Sigh. It's true. And when you give me Penelope, I think about ... well, she was weaving, not STITCHing, wasn't she? Well, my brain was like "She's doing things with fabric! STITCH!" (in case you don't know / forgot: Penelope weaves Laertes's shroud by day and unravels it by night as a way of deferring her SUITORs). I pulled myself out of that hole easily enough, but it was an omen. It boded. Bade? Whatever, bad things were in store for me, is the point.

That set of long Downs in the middle was actually the easiest part of the grid for me, largely because XGAMES was a gimme (coming out of the NW with the "XG-" in place), and then TAZO gave me that "Z" that made LAMAZE very clear (great clue on LAMAZE CLASS, btw (16D: Recommended labor practice)). BANANA PEELS was pretty transparent (18D: Yellow slippers?) and so with the center settled I sort of slid right down into the SE corner—once I'd changed BOLTS to BRADS (44D: Carpentry supply), which gave me PRESS BOX (48A: Writer's block?), which gave me XOXO, and two "X"s was more than enough to handle that SE corner. So without too much more than regular Saturday effort I ended up here:

As you can see, no idea about LEN BARRY. I had put LEN BAKER in there, but when that didn't work out, I just left it. That far SW part of the SW corner — SPECIALS ERRANDS TESLAS — filled itself in pretty quickly, which I thought boded omenly in a good way! Good boding! But the Opposite Was True. I got my hopes up but then precisely zero of those long Downs wanted to play along. Worse, the short Acrosses weren't too helpful either. [Calendar abbr.]s aren't gonna help anyone. "Pfft, good luck guessing us, idiot," they seemed to sneer. I kinda wanted IMAY but I kinda wanted a bunch of stuff and kinda wanting never locked anything down. Finally decided it was CREMA (36A: Espresso foam) and not FROTH because 33D: "Pass" was probably NA- (W? H?), and 32A: Yank slightly was probably TUG ON (not TUG AT, as I had conjectured) (FROTH is more cappuccino than espresso, anyway). NAH gave me OPRAH (educated guess! five-letter "host" of something where "People Are Talking"? Ending in "H"? I have a guess!). And down the long answers came. AMOUR-PROPRE, oof, ouch, wow, parsing that was ... something (21D: Self-esteem, from the French). I know it, but haven't thought about it in god knows how long. Wish that corner hadn't ended on MINT COIN SET, which felt awkward and kinda made-up, or at least didn't strike me as a coherent, recognizable, on-the-nose Thing to me. I know coins can be mint, and you can buy them in sets, but MINT COIN SET somehow doesn't land. Only answer that really made me wince and cock my head and go "really?" Whereas AMOUR-PROPRE, despite being harder, felt like an old friend. Not necessarily a good friend, but an old one. "Oh ... it's you. I know you." A more satisfying feeling of recognition. 

As for the NE, that initially looked much dicier than the SW—didn't get much help from those longer Acrosses leading into that deep corner. "LOOK HERE!" was good, and then I got MEH, which felt probably right, but MIMICS felt like a bit of a guess, so the whole situation seemed tenuous until I lucked into SPEED SKATES (off just the initial S-E-). Being able to drop a long Down early made everything easier than it had been in the SW, even though that NW corner is *full* of things I simply didn't know. IDEAL GAS LAW? LOL, whatever you say. SISTA Monica Parker, WES Studi ... this corner was here to remind me that however good I am at crosswords, I am actually one sorry ignorant human being, because that is the condition of being human, so you better stay curious and stay (reasonably) humble or you are not going to enjoy the ride. In the end, I enjoyed this ride, even if it leaned a little more heavily into trivia I typically like.  

Notes:

• 46A: ___ Studi, first Native American man to receive an Oscar (2019) (WES) — his Academy Award was an Honorary one. I assumed I didn't know this guy, but boy was I wrong. He has appeared multiple (hilarious) times as Bucky on "Reservation Dogs"—my favorite current TV program (now that "Better Call Saul" is off the air).

[WES Studi is the dude in the jean vest who says "same as mine!"]

• 59A: In descending order: Mount Everest, K2, Kangchenjunga, ___ (LHOTSE) — hoo boy, no idea ... but that corner was so easy that the answer just came together from crosses. I never even saw the clue until I had the answer completed.
• 35A: Blues singer ___ Monica Parker (SISTA) — wrote in SANTA, SANTA Monica being a thing I've heard of / place I've been / boulevard I've driven. Parker sang blues and gospel and died fairly young (age 58, in 2014)

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]