Mobile relatives / SAT 10-22-22 / Duo who have to give up their foosball table spot / Santa's is H0H 0H0 in Canada / Desus & Mero airer for short / Fourth letter of Arabic alphabet / Democracy imperative

Constructor: Brooke Husic and Yacob Yonas

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: STABILES (5D: Mobile relatives) —

STABILE (n.): an abstract sculpture or construction similar in appearance to a mobile but made to be stationary (merriam-webster.com) 

[Jerusalem Stabile I, Alexander Calder]

Alexander Calder (/ˈkɔːldər/; July 22, 1898 – November 11, 1976) was an American sculptor known both for his innovative mobiles (kinetic sculptures powered by motors or air currents) that embrace chance in their aesthetic, his static "stabiles", and his monumental public sculptures. Calder preferred not to analyze his work, saying, "Theories may be all very well for the artist himself, but they shouldn't be broadcast to other people." (wikipedia)

• • •

Well, this has been quite a three-day run—I've barely groaned, ughed, or thrown my computer across the room once! Today's themeless puzzle provides an interesting comparison (and counterpoint) to yesterday's. Both puzzles played easy for me, and both are crammed with vibrant longer entries. Both of them have the kind of whoosh-whoosh flow I most enjoy in my themeless puzzles, and both feel very current and fresh. By way of contrast, yesterday's had almost no popular culture or trivia in it—hardly a proper noun in sight—whereas today's puzzle has names coming at you left and right. We start with a big-ass proper noun right off the bat at 1A: World capital whose name means "new flower" (ADDIS ABABA), though geography is not the type of trivia that typically flummoxes people. It's the names from the entertainment field (movies, music, sports) that can really split a solving audience, sometimes in terms of puzzle enjoyment, but especially in terms of puzzle difficulty. ELENA Delle Donne is either an out-and-out gimme ... or else you end up having to piece every part of her name together from crosses. I mean, you could say something similar, at least in theory, about every single answer in every single crossword (you know it or you have to cross it), but names tend to illustrate that problem most dramatically. Today's names, for me, were all mainstream and fairly crossed, and when you fall on the "hey, I know these people!" side of the trivia gap, the puzzle really speeds up, which tends to feel great. Even if I come at this puzzle from a trivia-hater's perspective, I have to believe it was still pretty doable, and that the bulk of the puzzle provided other fabulous answers aplenty. I think yesterday's puzzle showed that a grid doesn't need proper nouns to feel current, and I think this puzzle shows that you can pepper your grid with proper nouns as long as they are either mainstream-famous or fairly crossed. Turns out I enjoy both kinds of puzzles. 

So what's so enjoyable about today? For me, the puzzle kicked into gear with "IS THAT A YES?"—that's the first bit of real flair, and probably my favorite answer in the grid ("OH REALLY?" UH, YEAH, really). I liked ALL-TIME HIGH, and liked that it ironically crashed down to the bottom of the grid. I liked WAGERS / LOSERS occupying the same row—sometimes when you make puzzles you end up with happy accidents like that. Entertaining juxtapositions. Like "IT'S ALL OVER" hovering ominously above NEARLYWEDS! I'm an EMPTY-NESTER, my mom grew up in IDAHO, I enjoy a good MALBEC—in virtually every way, this puzzle was in my wheelhouse. The things I thought were going to throw me—the science/tech-sounding stuff—ended up being very tame and no problem at all (DATA POINT, PH TEST). I was lucky enough to learn ARO just last week, in a different crossword puzzle. I knew about ACE (asexual) but couldn't make it work, and eventually ended up inferring ARO (from "aromantic"), and thus learned a new term ... and then bam, here it is, coming down Main Street. Love when that happens. Surprised they put the word "romantic" in the actual clue today (since that's what the "RO" part stands for), but maybe that was necessary.

Here was my opening gambit, just in case that's interesting to people who struggle with Saturdays. 1A: World capital whose name means "new flower" didn't help much (me: "NOVA ... SCOTIA? Oof no, not even close, move on ..."). So, as usual, I attacked the short stuff first, and I was lucky enough to start with 19A: Traffic controllers, in brief?, and that "?" practically screamed "it's not automobile traffic! or air traffic!" Next traffic to occur to me: drug. And thus DEA were the "controllers." That "E" got me DOSE, and that was all I actually needed for ...

Probably could've gotten ACID from just the "D," but with the "A" in place, it was obvious, and at that point, off I went. Whoosh + whoosh. Quickly ran through all the Downs in that section, and had enough material in place to close it out fast. Was not sure about STABILES, or what exactly would follow DATA, but once I got PAIRED, both those Downs became clearer, and ALL-TIME HIGH had me to the other side of the grid in no time.

More highlights:

• 50A: Duo who have to give up their foosball table spot (LOSERS) — I loved this, and I loved being tricked by this, And I Don't Even Like Foosball. I liked that I went from mild frustration, thinking a specific fictional duo was being asked for ("what stupid Cartoon Network show is this from!?"), to the huge aha of "oh, this is just any duo playing the dumb game in a dumb arcade or whatever ... LOSERS walk ... sure, yes, that's actually good." 
• 32D: Knight shift, e.g. (CHESS MOVE) — only just now realizing that "Knight shift" is a pun. Maybe it's the actual term for that CHESS MOVE, but it's also a pun:

• 28D: Fourth letter of the Arabic alphabet (THA) — I don't mind the puzzle using less-than-great fill to teach me something new, as long as said teaching doesn't bog me down, and this didn't. Thought maybe Arabic had an ETA in its alphabet too (like Greek), but no.
• 11D: One who can finally stop postponing that long R.V. trip, maybe (EMPTY-NESTER) — maybe? uh, maybe not. It's like this clue doesn't know me at all! We just wanna be alone in a quiet house with our pets and a good book, and so that is what we are doing as much as possible with our empty nest situation. Well, we're going to NZ later this year, but that will use up all of our wanderlust for the next five years, probably. 

My friend and fellow xword blogger Rachel Fabi is coming down from Syracuse today, with baked goods (!), so my day is virtually guaranteed to be great. Hope yours goes well too.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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