Citrus drink since 1979 / FRI 3-10-23 / Page or Ameche of football / Jazz trumpeter Jones / Pantsless Disney character / Civil rights pioneer Claudette of Montgomery / Big little role in the Marvel Universe / Kurylenko of Black Widow

Constructor: Claire Rimkus

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: Claudette COLVIN (6D: Civil rights pioneer Claudette of Montgomery) —

Claudette Colvin (born Claudette Austin; September 5, 1939) is an American pioneer of the 1950s civil rights movement and retired nurse aide. On March 2, 1955, she was arrested at the age of 15 in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to give up her seat to a white woman on a crowded, segregated bus. This occurred nine months before the more widely known incident in which Rosa Parks, secretary of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), helped spark the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott.

Colvin was one of four plaintiffs in the first federal court case filed by civil rights attorney Fred Gray on February 1, 1956, as Browder v. Gayle, to challenge bus segregation in the city. In a United States district court, she testified before the three-judge panel that heard the case. On June 13, 1956, the judges determined that the state and local laws requiring bus segregation in Alabama were unconstitutional. The case went to the United States Supreme Court on appeal by the state, and it upheld the district court's ruling on November 13, 1956. One month later, the Supreme Court affirmed the order to Montgomery and the state of Alabama to end bus segregation. The Montgomery bus boycott was then called off after a few months. Her brave stand sparked outrage and garnered national attention, leading to a boycott of Montgomery his boycott that lasted for over a year. Ultimately, the Supreme Court declared segregation on public transportation to be unconstitutional, thanks in part to the lawsuit Browder v. Gayle, which was filed on behalf of Colvin and three other women. (wikipedia)

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[technically his name's GUSTAVO] 

Well, no zoom-zoom whoosh-whoosh today, that's for sure. Conventional blocky grid structure with all long answers in corners (except the middle one) kept me pent up in corners, working section by section, and I never worked up any real flow. Also, those NW / SE sections are very cut off, with only the tiniest passageways in and out, so they function as choke points, and I choked on both (Claudette COLV-no idea (6D: Civil rights pioneer Claudette of Montgomery), NOT A WORD, ugh (37D: "Shut your mouth!" = NOT A PEEP!)). The actual content of the grid was overwhelmingly smooth and occasionally sparkly, but solving this one felt more like slogging through a Saturday than flying through a Friday. PREGNANCY PILLOW is the best thing in the grid, easy, so I'm glad it's sitting dead center—where best things belong. I can't say I found anything else in the grid nearly as thrilling (in the sense of original and fun-to-see), though I have to give some respect to NO RELATION, an answer that is perfect for its clue, but that took me Every Single Cross to get. I was looking for something one-word and adjectival the whole time. NORTH CAROLINIAN? NOMINATED? No idea. NO RELATION is adjectival ("unrelated," basically), but the two-word phrasing absolutely baffled me. Couldn't parse it as two words, no sir, no way. On the other side of the grid, I struggled to get SCANTY from SC-, and struggled to get LORD (seemed ... too basic to be right) and struggled to get BADLIARS (parsing, again), and struggled to get ION (I'm sure it's right, just not a way I think of good old NACL), and yet, but once I finally got into the NE, I brought the whole thing down fast, without ever looking at either long Down clue. How? Why? I have no idea why I didn't look at them earlier. I get so attached to the "work the short stuff first" method sometimes it's like I get locked in and the longer stuff becomes invisible to me. I think it's frustration. I know I *should* be able to get the shorter stuff, so I keep whacking at it, when it might make more sense to walk away and look elsewhere. 

Anyway, there was no part of this grid where I didn't struggle at least a little. NOT A WORD! absolutely killed me for a bit in the south (37D: "Shut your mouth!"(NOT A PEEP)). I used that "W" to make WEAK at 49A: 1 on a scale of 1 to 5, maybe (POOR)). This locked me in good. Extremely plausible answer "confirmed" by somewhat plausible answer. Hate all Risk-related clues because the puzzle has always (for decades) assumed that I played Risk and I have never played Risk and do not plan to play Risk (44D: It's blue on a Risk board = EUROPE). My whole solving life, "Hey, you know in Risk, where..." No, stop, I don't. How 'bout you just refer to a regular map? That's gonna be hard enough for me. [LOL I thought maybe I *had* played Risk at one point because I had a faint memory of game pieces that were vaguely geopolitical and so I just googled [what is board game with spies and bombs] and turns out that was Stratego]. Also no idea about football (as clued) so ALAN was hard (3D: Page or Ameche of football). *Do* know something about Better Call Saul (the best TV show of this century), so GUS helped me out, but unless you know that show *well*, yeesh, that seems hard (47A: "Better Call Saul" character ___ Fring). Some of the slang today I knew (BAKED), some of it I did not (HOSED? ... I guess) (46D: Cheated, in slang). Marvel Cinematic Universe characters ... meh, we're back to Risk again, basically, i.e. not interested (this will make the rest of my solving life difficult, I realize, oh well). I knew enough to know ANT-MAN but not OLGA Kurylenko. Two MCU clues? Feels like shilling. The OLGA clue was an unnecessary plug. Lotsa OLGAs in the world. 

I only just realized that I was reading 1A: Protagonist's pride, often (TRAGIC FLAW) incorrectly. I thought the clue was telling me that the protagonist was proud of his flaw, which made no sense. But it's pride itself that is the flaw. I'd've done better here without the word "Protagonist's" in the clue, oddly. Just couldn't catch this puzzle's wave(length), most of the time. Seems well put together, but just didn't click for me.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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