Hautbois, en anglais / FRI 11-10-23 / "Butt out!," in brief / One who's been tapped on the shoulder / Renaissance faire performer such as a lutenist or juggler, perhaps

Constructor: Kate Hawkins

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: PISTOLES (36D: Doubloons) —

Pistole is the French name given to a Spanish gold coin in use from 1537; it was a doubloon or double escudo, the gold unit. The name was also given to the Louis d'Or of Louis XIII of France, and to other European gold coins of about the value of the Spanish coin. One pistole was worth approximately ten livres or three écus, but higher figures are also seen. The derivation is uncertain; the term may come from the Czech píšťala ("whistle", a term for a hand cannon), or from the Italian town of Pistoia; either way, it was originally spelled pistolet and originated in military slang, and probably has the same root as pistol. [...] The coin appears repeatedly in Dumas' fiction. He has his character state, in The Three Musketeers set in the 1620s, that one hundred pistoles were worth a thousand livres tournois when Athos bargains for the horse he takes to the battle of La Rochelle. // It was also referred to by Raphael Sabatini; who wrote 'swashbuckling' tales of the 17th and 18th centuries; in his book, St Martin's Summer. // The coin gave its name to the town of Trois-Pistoles, Quebec, where according to local legend an explorer lost a goblet worth three pistoles in the river. (wikipedia)

• • •

Was really enjoying this one until I got down below the median and fell into a (BALL) PIT of grimness and clunkiness and numismatic esoterica. But let's start with the good part—it's real easygoing up top, in the NW, which means that PERNICIOUS and DOES DONUTS (bright answers both) come popping into view pretty quickly, and then, whoosh, there's the drop:

I love it! YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE! Actually, you should have, this is Friday, this is what Friday is about, you did your job here, thank you very much. I actually left out part of the process here—a minor delay up top after I tripped over some ambiguous short stuff. Never a fun way to spend time on a Friday, or any day, but it happens. But if you've got gunky fill like BSS and you clue it ambiguously, now the solver is spending more actual time with your gunky fill than they are with your glorious fill, and what's the good of that? Anyway, I wrote in MSS at 9D: Degs. with lab courses, often. I guess "lab courses" are probably more common at the Bachelor's level, OK, shrug, fine, I don't have a BS or an MS so I dunno, but I feel like MSS is the "degree" (plural) I'm more likely to see in a crossword, so boom, in it went, and then 6A: "Butt out!," in brief ("MYOB!") (i.e. "mind your own business!") became, well, a mystery. You try parsing _Y_M! Not easy. I went with "IYDM!," which I rationalized as "If you don't mind...!," which I think was my brain's broken way of channeling "Do you mind!" IIRC. IYKYK. YMMV. LMNOP. Sigh. Anyway, that error was relatively easily fixed, and *then* came the whoosh. Followed my more whooshing, here and there, hither and yon ... hitting the books, being like that! Good stuff, for sure.

Then came the first bit of grimness—that clue on PART I (30D: "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — ___" (2014 film)). Again, I don't know why you write clues for your less-than-lovely fill that forces people to stop and linger over said fill, wondering what the hell is going on. I spent what felt like a good deal of time trying to remember what the subtitle was on that damn teen trilogy movie sequel whateverthehellitis (I think there's somehow actually a new installment in this cinematic universe coming out soon, why?). I actually saw "The Hunger Games" and thought it was fine. But back to this clue on PART I. Woof. I guess ... there's a PART II. Can't wait to see this clue again when PART II appears in the puzzle (I'm being sarcastic!). 

The worst thing down below, though, was PISTOLES. Why would you burn one of your longer, marquee answers on arcana like that. Do you want your solvers struggling with extremely bygone coinage. PISTOLES is the kind of answer that can never be satisfying because even after you get it, you're likely to be left thinking "????" The word feels vaguely familiar, but that didn't keep the entire PISTOLES section from being by far the hardest to solve. I just had this gaping hole I had to work around. Here's what that hole looked like:

I should've gotten CARATS here, but it just didn't come to me. I wanted TOURIST TRAP at 45A: Many a shop outside a national park, but since I wasn't sure about anything after I wrote TRAP in, I tore TRAP out. CHOIR eluded me because of the deceptive (if not outright deceitful) word "costumed" (48A: Group often costumed in robes). It's not cosplay. It's not Halloween. They're not pretending to be something they're not. Boo to "costumed." It's defensible as a generic sort of word, but boo to it nonetheless. I kinda associate RIMS with cars, but mason jars ???? (46D: Things on mason jars or racing cars). No. So that was no fun. Never knew Confucius wrote ODES. And then the far SE corner got me all tangled up because of another short wrong answer (like MSS up top, but with worse implications for my solving progress). At 51D: Things made of stakes? (BETS), I wrote in the only reasonable answer, which was POTS. POTS are where the BETS go. They are made up of your "initial stakes" (extremely common clue for ANTES) and then whatever other "stakes" get added. Sigh sigh. This meant I couldn't see 49A: Marvy (FAB) at all. And then for 49D: Stoke (FUEL), I wrote in FEED!!! You FEED the fire, or someone's feelings, in that you encourage them to grow ... right?? Sigh x 3. FEED / POTS created an ultimately tiny but still annoying snafu. Coming on top of the PISTOLES nonsense, it made my ending today feel much worse than my beginning, largely, though not entirely, negating the good vibes that had been banked up top. Still, this is more good than bad, overall. 

Some more things!:

• 15D: Chesterfield, e.g. (COAT) — I did not know this. I know a Chesterfield as ... like, a couch? A sofa? Or am I confusing it with a davenport, hang on ... ha, I was right "a sofa with padded arms and a back of the same height and curved outward at the top," per Oxford Languages/Google. I also know Chesterfield as a cigarette brand of yore. Here's an ad featuring Ronald Reagan sending boxes of Chesterfields to all his friends for Christmas. Just one of his many brilliant, helpful ideas.

• 34A: One who's been tapped on the shoulder (SIR) — I got this and did not immediately get the context. I was wondering why an enlisted man would do this to his superior officer. "SIR, SIR ... [tap tap] ... you've got something on your tie, SIR." [Please stop explaining this in the comments; I said I didn’t *immediately* get the context—I got it shortly thereafter: it’s a dubbing ceremony for a knight, of course]
• 37A: Make ___ (HAY) — So not "Make WAY!" then? Great, fantastic, thanks.
• 25D: Abbr. at the end of a list (MISC.) — list-ending is really more ETC. or ET AL's territory.
• 8D: Only about 10% of human bodies have these (OUTIES) — nothing in the clue suggests you're gonna get all slangy like that, so harrumph.  
• 35D: Former attorney general Bill (BARR) — are there no non-repugnant BARRs? Speaking of other BARRs, semi-hilarious that ROSANNE / BARR appears in this puzzle and the puzzle's just pretending like she's not there (yes, the real Roseanne BARR spells her name with that extra "E", but still, you can't put ROSANNE / BARR in a grid and expect me not to think of Roseanne Barr). We need new BARRs! Candy BARR was an American stripper and burlesque dancer! I mean, she shot her second husband, and had a relationship with Jack Ruby (!), but she still seems way more appealing than Bill BARR. Candy BARR is my favorite BARR now (admittedly, it's a low ... bar)

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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