Bespectacled cartoon aardvark / MON 1-30-23 / Activist who co-founded Black Lives Matter / Nonnegotiable salary limit / French word that sounds like an English pronoun / Smallest poodle variety / Duh in modern slang

Constructor: David Steinberg

Relative difficulty: Uh ... some? Some difficulty? Harder than usual, but still easy? I solved Downs-only and nearly didn't make it ... until I did!

THEME: RIGHT BETWEEN THE / EYES (56A: With 67-Across, in a sudden and completely apparent way ... or a punny description of this puzzle's circled letters) — the letters N, O, S, and E appear between two "I"s in their respective answers; so they spell the word "NOSE" (which is RIGHT BETWEEN THE / EYES, face-wise), and the letters in "NOSE" all appear "right between the 'I's" ... and if you connect the letters in "NOSE," it depicts a funny cartoon nose (if this is not an intended feature of this theme, I Don't Want To Hear About It ... let me live in my delightful world of imagination):

Theme answers:

• SKATED ON THIN ICE (17A: Engaged in some risky behavior)
• AUDIO INPUT (22A: Microphone jack, for one)
• "THIS IS AN OUTRAGE!" (36A: "I'm appalled!")
• LIE IN STATE (48A: Be honored before burial)

Word of the Day: ALICIA GARZA (11D: Activist who co-founded Black Lives Matter) —

Alicia Garza (born January 4, 1981) is an American civil rights activist and writer known for co-founding the international Black Lives Matter movement. She has organized around the issues of health, student services and rights, rights for domestic workers, ending police brutality, anti-racism, and violence against transgender and gender non-conforming people of color. Her editorial writing has been published by The Guardian, The Nation, Rolling Stone, and Truthout. She currently directs Special Projects at the National Domestic Workers Alliance and is the Principal at the Black Futures Lab. (wikipedia)

• • •

Well this is one of the best Monday puzzles I've ever done, and I only did the Downs, LOL. The theme just ... kept coming. I was struggling a little solving Downs-only, but I could see, via some pretty easy Downs, that the circled letters were going to spell out "NOSE." And I could see that if you connected those letters, you'd get (vaguely) a nose shape. All that was left was the revealer, which was fine, if a little funnily laid out (with just the EYES part dropping down to the bottom line). Yes, the nose is RIGHT BETWEEN THE / EYES, I thought. That makes sense. Interesting. But at that point, I was still struggling with various patches of the grid, trying to make them come together using only the Downs. The point is that I sort of forgot about the theme once I had it sorted, and it was only later, when it all finally ended (triumphantly, with a literal hands-in-the-air moment) that I noticed that the "N" and the "O" and the "S" and the "E" were all situated ... between two "I"s. A nose profile, a snappy revealer, and a visual pun to boot. It's not my birthday, but I will take it! 

It's possible, quite possible, that I am predisposed to love this puzzle because I am still basking in my hard-won Downs-only success. I was dying there for a while. The long Downs were not coming, nor were a few key short Downs, and I couldn't parse several of the themers (only SKATED ON THIN ICE was in solid for a long while), so I was staring down the barrel of failure for sure (eventually I will fail a Downs-only Monday. It's inevitable. I'll just get ... stuck, and with no help from the Acrosses, I'll be doomed. But Not Today!). First, the stupidity. I had HOT written in at 19D: Word before trick or tip. "HOT tip" makes sense. "HOT trick" ... well, less so, probably. I can imagine a context in which one might say "HOT trick," but it's not really a likely context for a Monday puzzle. So I had to (eventually) change that to HAT. Had OBVS before OBVI for a bit, that was rough (38D: "Duh!," in modern slang). I also had a hard time initially with DEVILED EGGS (24D: Appetizers sprinkled with paprika). I wanted something Hungarian, because of the paprika, so ... I don't know, some kind of PIEROGIS!? Sigh. Also, "USE with caution" is not a phrase that rang bells. "Proceed with caution," sure. But USE was not coming quickly. But the worst sticking points were, not surprisingly, proper nouns. Specifically, the proper nouns at 25D: "Awkwafina Is ___ From Queens" (Comedy Central series) and 11D: Activist who co-founded Black Lives Matter. Just ... blanks. The one thing I had to hold on to was that I was fairly sure I had *seen* both names before, so I was hoping (praying) that maybe if I could scrape together some of the crosses in their names from inference, that would help me remember. And that worked great for "Awkwafina Is NORA From Queens. Eventually got the "N" and "A" from the themers and bam, yes, NORA, cool. That left the Black Lives Matter co-founder, and holy cow, where to start? Getting her was especially tough at first because I couldn't figure out her neighbor either: 12D: Disavow (RECANT). I just could not think of a synonym. I wanted RECUSE, but knew it was wrong. Stuck stuck stuck. No idea how RECANT finally popped into my head, but thank god. And still, the Black Lives Matter activist was just a smattering of letters (almost all from themers) and little more.

But RECANT gave me HARD CAP, which really made the activist's name look like it started ALICE. I wrote in ALICE and tried to make a last name out of the rest, to no avail. I actually wanted something Hispanic, a name of Spanish origin (correct!), like ORTEGA (incorrect!), but I didn't know why. I didn't trust my instincts. Then I was looking at BE-T and thought "what if that's BEAT? ... oh, what if her name is actually ALICIA!?" So I tried it. "And BER- ... well that's probably a "T" or "G" ... ALICIA ... TANZA ... GANZA ... omg GARZA, that sounds right! OK, gonna try it... here we go: ALICIA GARZA!" And bam, the "Congratulations!" message popped up and I soft-shouted "Yes!" Honestly, I feel immortal. Like I could solve anything. From absolutely nothing to complete name—inch by inch, scratching and clawing ... and then winning. The fact that the puzzle was conceptually brilliant just made the whole experience even sweeter. Good night, everybody!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. I just learned that GARZA is the Spanish word for "heron" 

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