Sassy letter-shaped gesture accompanying a retort / SAT 7-1-23 / Chess ranking system named for a Hungarian physicist / George in aviation slang / German food that's better than it sounds / Classic Beat Generation roman a clef / Popular pet originally from Mongolia / Dutch scientist with an eponymous cloud / Disney villain inspired by drag queen Divine

Constructor: Ben Tolkin

Relative difficulty: Extremely Easy

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: Divine (28A: Disney villain inspired by the drag queen Divine => URSULA) —

Harris Glenn Milstead (October 19, 1945 – March 7, 1988), better known by his stage name Divine, was an American actor, singer, and drag queen. Closely associated with independent filmmaker John Waters, Divine was a character actor, usually performing female roles in cinematic and theatrical productions, and adopted a female drag persona for his music career.

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, to a conservative middle-class family, Milstead developed an early interest in drag while working as a women's hairdresser. By the mid-1960s he had embraced the city's countercultural scene and befriended Waters, who gave him the name "Divine" and the tagline of: "The most beautiful woman in the world...almost." Along with his friend David Lochary, Milstead joined Waters' acting troupe, the Dreamlanders, and adopted female roles for their experimental short films Roman Candles (1966), Eat Your Makeup (1968), and The Diane Linkletter Story (1969). Again in drag, he took a lead role in both of Waters' early full-length movies, Mondo Trasho (1969) and Multiple Maniacs (1970), the latter of which attracted press attention for the group. Milstead next starred in Waters' Pink Flamingos(1972), which was a hit on the U.S. midnight movie circuit, became a cult classic, and established Milstead's fame in the American counterculture.

After starring as the lead role in Waters' next film, Female Trouble (1974), Divine moved on to theater, appearing in several avant-garde performances alongside San Francisco drag collective, The Cockettes. He followed this with a performance in Tom Eyen's play Women Behind Bars and its sequel, The Neon Woman. Continuing his cinematic work, he starred in two more of Waters' films, Polyester (1981) and Hairspray (1988), the latter of which represented his breakthrough into mainstream cinema and for which he was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male. [...] 

Described by People magazine as the "Drag Queen of the Century", Divine has remained a cult figure, particularly within the LGBT community, and has provided the inspiration for fictional characters, artworks, and songs. (wikipedia)

• • •

Very short write-up today, as I am driving up to visit my wife at summer camp (i.e. the writing workshop she's attending in Saratoga Springs), and I want to get an early start (you can expect a shortish Sunday write-up too, as I will be exhausted from all the driving between now and then). This puzzle was so easy I got suspicious. I even stopped a couple of times like, "... OK, what's wrong here? Is there gonna be some dumb gimmick that jumps out at me, something where I suddenly realize every answer needs to be written in some special way in order to decode some ridiculous message about, I don't know, the 4th of July or something?" But no. No theme, no gimmick, just the easiest Saturday puzzle I've ever done. Or one of them (I've done a Lot, I can't honestly remember them all). The only answer that caused more than a slight hesitation was BAG End, which I flat-out couldn't remember (41A: ___ End (setting in "The Lord of the Rings")). I saw all those ponderous, humorless, painfully dull LOTR movies and remember virtually nothing about them. So my counterclockwise zip around the grid came to a stop there, but I just went back up top and headed out again, clockwise this time, and off I went again, with absolutely no resistance. It's eerie how easy this is. Is it being marketed to novice solvers with a big "You Can Do This, We Swear" sign, because seriously, get those Saturday-phobes in here to have at this one. You'll have trouble finding a more pliable Saturday in alllll the archives. I put the "S" in at the end of 1D: They're offered seven times a year (SATS), then immediately got CLASH (14A: Don't match). Tried to get 12D: First word in a 13-Across, but the cross-reference made it weird, so I went and got LLOYD'S (seriously, how does 13D: London-based insurance company make it into a Saturday puzzle—that's a Monday clue). After entering (the also perplexingly easy) CHEER and THOR, I went back to the cross-referenced clues and was able to infer that 13A: Present-day request? was a LETTER, and "present-day" made it obvious what kind of letter it was ...

From there, instead of following the LETTER into the east, I burned down the west coast and then back across the middle and south. I had a brief hesitation trying to turn the corner in the SW, as I miswrote Ray ROMANO's name as "ROMERO" (?) and also tried DOG SPA before DOG BED (36D: Certain creature comfort?). But once I got those answers sorted (10-15 seconds??), bam, off I went again—the first letters of those long Acrosses were all I needed to solve every one of them. I did a double take at EYELASH, since I was trying to write in EYELID (apparently both words are "correct" for this idiom). I then winced at ENIGMATOLOGY, which seemed like an embarrassing (though apparently successful) attempt to kiss up to the editor (who famously majored in "ENIGMATOLOGY," a major he invented—google the word and I guarantee you dude shows up on first page of results) (52A: Study of riddles). But one thing I didn't do was struggle. Ever. I mean, there's BAG End, but that wasn't struggle, that was just your ordinary "whoops, don't know this one, better work around it," which I did. I enjoyed the whoosh-whoosh, the Going Very Fast, and I think the top section is pretty good overall, but "SO I GATHERED" is the only answer that felt truly marquee-worthy, though LETTER TO SANTA and BATS AN EYELASH are decent as well. There's nothing wrong with this grid—it's very clean. And there's nothing wrong with having a beginner's level of difficulty on a Saturday every once in a while. Didn't have enough kick for me, but will likely prove delightful to those who really struggle to finish most Saturdays.

Stray comments:

• 33A: Mulligan (REDO) — I know this as golf slang. I think it gets used in non-golf contexts now, though probably primarily by golfers (i.e. not me)
• 7D: Outer ear? (HUSK) — ... of corn
• 45A: NewLeaf Potato, e.g., in brief (GMO) — I wrote in GPS ... I figured maybe this was the GPS that the Nissan Leaf came with? Anyway, Ray Romero I mean ROMANO helped me fix it.
• 27D: "George," in aviation slang (AUTOPILOT) — I did not know this. I like this. Next time you're doing things mindlessly, tell people you're "on George" and let them look at you funny and imagine what drug that is...
• 25D: German food that's better than it sounds? (WURST) — yes! Make puns very bad! The badder the better. Why are some bad puns eye-rollers and groaners and others (like this one) just perfect? It's an enigma! 

Good day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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