Big brand in immunity support / SAT 6-17-23 / Bright purple yam used to flavor desserts / Whom Athena smites with a boulder in the Iliad / Flack in the music business / Emoji with red face and fangs / See you soon in France / Two-in-one computer command / Retailer that sells hydration packs

Constructor: Ryan McCarty

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: UBE (37D: Bright purple yam used to flavor desserts) —

Dioscorea alata, also known as purple yam, ube (/ˈubɛ/, /ˈubeɪ/), or greater yam, among many other names, is a species of yam (a tuber). The tubers are usually a vivid violet-purple to bright lavender in color (hence the common name), but some range in color from cream to plain white. It is sometimes confused with taro and the Okinawa sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas cv. Ayamurasaki), although D. alata is also grown in Okinawa, where it is known as beniimo (紅芋). With its origins in the Asian tropics, D. alata has been known to humans since ancient times. // Because it has become naturalized following its origins in Asia, specifically the Philippines, through tropical South America, and the southeastern U.S., D. alata is referred to by many different names in these regions. In English alone, aside from purple yam, other common names include ten-months yam, water yam, white yam, winged yam, violet yam, Guyana arrowroot, or simply yam. [...] Purple yam desserts have more recently entered the United States through Philippine cuisine, under the Filipino name "ube". It is particularly popular due to the striking violet-purple color it gives to desserts. (wikipedia)

• • •

This one knocked me around quite a bit, which normally I don't mind so much on a Saturday, but there was a name-heavy, trivia-test quality to this one that eventually made it a bit tiresome, and too often my struggle in a given corner was rewarded with longer answers that felt ... somehow less than rewarding. The opening corner, i.e. the NW corner, set the tone for the whole puzzle. The opening corner is often harder than the rest, since you start with nothing, which is the hardest place to start, but still, yeesh. UKE before LEI, DEAD SEA before ARAL SEA, GELATIN (?) before KERATIN, ASK ME before USE ME, a heap of time wondering what the hell kind of STAMP I might be dealing with at 3D: Something once sold for pennies that's now worth much more (RARE STAMP), a heap of time wondering what was needed for "pressing" at 1A: Pressing need? if it wasn't some kind of IRON (which, in a way, I guess it was ... just not in a way that helped me) (BARBELL). I somehow retrieved the brand name ESTER-C from ... somewhere in my brain, but I have a feeling that answer is gonna drag at least some solvers to the bottom of the Proper Noun Ocean, if ARES BAKU LANA STAN ARAL SEA haven't done that already. The worst part about that corner wasn't the difficulty so much as how much the difficulty came from names, and also how unrewarding it was to finally get the RARE part of RARE STAMP. I was waiting on something snappy, something on-the-money, perfect, specific ... something. And I just get RARE? I mean, the clue is accurate enough, but oof, the banality of RARE really made all the effort up there feel not quite worth it. 

Things get easier—and more rewarding—toward the middle. Usually these wide-open parts of grids can be intimidating and difficult to get ahold of, but I had an unexpected bit of whoosh-whoosh after finally breaking out of the NW, as I went AUTOCOMPLETE to MADE LOVE to DIVER to RIMS in quick succession. So what felt like forever in the NW and then bam, I'm all the way to the bottom of the grid. I've also seen PUH-LEASE so many times now (87 times this year? Something like that?), that the spelling there didn't fool me, so without much effort I had three longer answers shooting through that middle, which made it relatively easy to bring down. But then there's UBE. Ask me about UBE. Or don't. Actually, don't. I am insufficiently acquainted with Philippine cuisine to have any idea what UBE is. Not often you see someone debut a *3*-letter word, but here we are. UBE. I thank god for crosses and I mourn for the person/people who had yet to encounter the PUH- part of "OH, PUH-LEASE," R.I.P. I also mourn for the non-French speakers, holy cow, À BIENTÔT!? I took French for seven years, so I'm good, but that seems somewhat on the tough (and long) side for foreign expressions. Anyway, despite writing in OMAHA before IDAHO (43D: Sacagawea's birthplace, today), that SW corner was easy enough. Hardest part was figuring out how the ADLIB clue worked (41D: Cut the cards, perhaps) (think "cut" as in "cut out" or "fail to use," and "cards" as in "cue cards").   

Longer answers disappointment returned in the SE with OIL HEAT (38D: Option for a house-warming?) and especially the singular noun GO-GO DANCE (30D: Bit of entertainment for which 57-Across (BOOTS) are worn). I think OIL HEAT is valid, actually, it's just not a phrase I ever hear. I guess we have GAS HEAT here in our home, and others have other kinds of HEAT in their homes, such as OIL HEAT. OK. Again, the answer just didn't have the "aha" snap I was yearning for. It's certainly better (or, more plausible) than OIL LAMP, which I may have actually written in (I like OIL LAMP better as fill in general, but *not* as an answer to this particular clue, obviously). And while GO-GO DANCERs and GO-GO DANCING seem like great answers, somehow one lone GO-GO DANCE just seems implausible and sad. Would never have thought of it as a countable noun. You can see GO-GO DANCE used as a verb ("Learn to GO-GO DANCE!") or adjective ("GO-GO DANCE moves!") if you go-go-google it. And I'm sure it *is*, technically, a singular noun. Just doesn't seem like a natural / customary form of the word, is all. 

Lots more names in the NE, where I finished up. ROBERTA was a huge gimme, as was SNAPE, but HOYEON was almost impossible for me (14A: __ Jung, "Squid Game" actress). I watch a reasonable amount of Korean film and am still very bad at registering actor names. I have never watched "Squid Game" (we canceled Netflix a while back), but even if I had, I wonder how much luck I'd've had with HOYEON. There's nothing at all wrong with her name appearing in a puzzle, but her name here at the end was yet another proper noun log on the proper noun fire, and by that point, the fire's pretty big. I had to run the alphabet to get the "Y" in her name, and ... well, you know where "Y" comes in the alphabet. Rough, anticlimactic way to end. I guess getting AYE did give me a little bit of an "aha" there to finish things off—it's a cute (if brutal) clue (9D: Word said in passing?) (i.e. passing ... a bill into law). And I really did think the middle was impressively creamy. But this was too often a name-slog, without enough sparkly long-answer payoff overall. And yet ... I find myself grateful that the puzzle is still willing to give me a proper Saturday workout. I'm always going to be out here advocating for a. insane trickiness on Thursdays (and Sundays, why not!?), and b. Real Difficulty on Saturdays. And while I didn't quite get the joy I wanted today, I did get the hardness, which is its own kind of joy. For me, anyway. 

Bullets:

• 34A: One who grows up, then eventually croaks (TADPOLE) — OK that's a good clue
• 38A: Emoji with a red face and fangs (OGRE) — how would I know that's an OGRE and not just ... an emoji with a red face and fangs?
• 55A: Exist naturally (INHERE) — making this a verb instead of an expression indicating location ("IN HERE!") is some Saturday-level madness, for sure.
• 52D: Chicken tender? (VET) — me, with the "V" in place: "uh ... VAC!? Why are you vacuuming your chickens!?" (a VET "tends" to chickens, such as those harmed in bizarre vacuuming accidents)

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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