Feeling of dread before the start of the workweek, in slang / FRI 9-29-23 / Blunt salespeople / Tube feature with the / Baked in Italian / Protagonist in a long-running Phyllis Reynolds Naylor book series

Constructor: Malaika Handa

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (NE corner = Medium; rest = Easy)

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: ALTON B. Parker (10D: ___ B. Parker, Democratic candidate for president in 1904) —

Alton Brooks Parker (May 14, 1852 – May 10, 1926) was an American judge. He was the Democratic nominee in the 1904 United States presidential election, losing in a landslide to incumbent Republican Theodore Roosevelt.

A native of upstate  New York, Parker practiced law in Kingston, New York, before being appointed to the New York Supreme Court and elected to the New York Court of Appeals. He served as Chief Judge of the latter from 1898 to 1904, when he resigned to run for president. In 1904, he defeated liberal publisher William Randolph Hearst for the Democratic Party nomination for President of the United States. In the general election, Parker opposed popular incumbent Republican President Theodore Roosevelt. After a disorganized and ineffective campaign, Parker was defeated by 336 electoral votes to 140, carrying only the traditionally Democratic Solid South. He then returned to practicing law. He managed John A. Dix's successful 1910 campaign for Governor of New York and served as prosecution counsel for the 1913 impeachment of Dix's successor, Governor William Sulzer. (wikipedia)

• • •

Sunday SCARIES? That is some infantilizing dopey terminology right there (112A: Sunday ___ (end-of-week anxiety, casually)).

That is what I wrote last year when I first saw this term. I have not seen, or heard, this term since then, until today, and so even though people last year told me it was a thing, my overall opinion has not shifted one bit. Also, last year's appearance of this term really took the novelty wind out of SUNDAY SCARIES's sails today (13D: Feeling of dread before the start of the workweek, in slang). I looked at the clue, had the SUND-, wrote in SUNDAY and thought "oh this is that dumb thing that was just in the puzzle ... SUNDAY .... SCARIES? No, that's too dumb ... [writes in SCARIES] ... well, it fits ... [starts checking crosses] ... well, what do you know! SCARIES! I managed to remember something! Wish it weren't this dumb phrase, but still, woo hoo!" Deeply ambivalent about getting my first whoosh-whoosh feeling of the day from so dumb an answer (dumb!), but whoosh is whoosh and you take it where you can get it, I guess. Anyway, here's what SUNDAY SCARIES did for me:

Straight down the grid, confirmed by SIKHS etc. After this, I was very much in business. I had that "didn't I just see this?" feeling again, not long after SUNDAY SCARIES, with RENT STRIKE. Wasn't this part of a recent theme? Maybe something to do with "X"s? Yes—just fifteen days ago! There, it was rendered as RENTX (with the "X" repping "strike"), but it's the same idea. Again, so glad my brain is actually retaining little bits of information from all these puzzles I do. Mostly everything seems a blur. But as I was saying, the novelty winds were blunted today by things my brain registered as duplicates of recent answers. I think I actually liked the less visually flashy NW and SE corners better than the gaudier pillars of long answers that run through the SW and NE. "MOONSHINE? .... I SHOULDN'T ..." is a miniature drama unto itself, and the SORE LOSER / FRENEMIES pairing seems tight as well. You can imagine your frenemy being a sore loser when they lose to you. For sure. 

The NE corner is solid enough. Possibly unlikely fact about me—I love me a SCENTED CANDLE ... though depending on the scent, I also hate me a SCENTED CANDLE (14D: Source of a burning odor?). I've got "Orchard Citrus" sitting here next to my desk. It's got three wicks, for a more even burn (I think). It's pretty nice. 

I got it in Beacon, on the way back from the City. I could go on about candles, but this is not (yet) a candle blog, so let's deal with the rest of the NE. I think I'm bored of POT DEALERS and just pot answers in general and all the marijuordplay that comes with them (puns on "joint" and "blunt" and "high" etc.) (15D: Blunt salespeople). Also, do dealers sell blunts? Having never purchased any drug (besides prescriptions, and alcohol), I thought dealers sold pot by the ounce (or fractions of an ounce), and then you rolled the blunt yourself. I'm so pot-ignorant that I only just now (literally) learned the difference between a blunt and a joint. In case you didn't know, here you go:

A blunt is a roll of cannabis inside a cigar or blunt wrap. These wraps are made out of tobacco, which adds a buzz and energy to your cannabis high. Typically, they’re bigger than joints and spliffs and last a lot longer.

Blunt wraps are often sold at corner or grocery stores and come in 1- and 2-packs. They are often flavored. You can also cut open a cigar, empty it, and use the wrapping for a blunt. Cigarillos, such as a Swisher Sweets, Phillies, or Dark & Milds, are also great for blunts. (leafly dot com)

Would you call the corner grocery store a "dealer"? If they sell blunts, then they do "deal" in pot, so ... OK, fine. I have friends who smoke, and they'd be laughing at me right now if they read me, which they mostly don't, god bless them.

The NE corner was toughest for me not for any pot reason, but because it had the greatest concentration of Nuisance Names—those little names of unknown-to-you actors and models and what not that can clog up a grid like hair in a drain, and can (like hair in a drain, I guess) kinda hinder the flow. For me, today, these were ALICE AVA NESS TESS ALTON. The crosses were easy enough, and they were all name-like enough, that I could power through most of them no problem, but TESS and ALTON occupied the same general space, and then the GETS part of GETS INSIDE was not at all clear to me (I had GOES and considered RUNS), and *then* the clue on GAP was mysterious to me until the very end (I guess I don't recognize "Tube" as "The London Underground" without the "The" in front of it) (9A: Tube feature, with "the"). 

I also absolutely misread the "ranch dressing" clue up there, which is to say I missed the "?" (20A: Brand of ranch dressing?), and so sincerely thought STETSON was a brand of salad dressing until I was going over the grid post-solve. But no, it's ranch dressing question mark. As in what one might wear on a ranch ... therefore STETSON (the hat). The biggest help to me up there in that section was, strangely, COTTA, which I just know ... from crosswords. I really (really) like that a word meaning "baked" is crossing POT DEALERS. Extremely nice, extremely subtle touch.

Good work overall here, even with the Nuisance Names and the sense of extreme déjà vu on a couple of the longer answers. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. speaking of MOONSHINE there's a really good movie playing on Criterion Channel right now called The Last American Hero, starring Jeff Bridges, with Gary Busey, Ned Beatty, and Valerie Perrine (1973, d. Lamont Johnson). It's mostly about stock-car racing, but it takes place in North Carolina (I think) and the main character's dad is an old-time, oft-imprisoned MOONSHINEr. Lots of MOONSHINE content. Based on a 1965 Tom Wolfe essay for Esquire (!?). Very entertaining.

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