"Not that shrink!"? / THU 11-9-23 / Dried version of the almost-ripe poblano / Special effects devices at a rock concert / Tally of samples at a geology competition? / Pigment akin to ocher or umber / Prosecco alternative, familiarly / Iconic feature of The Who's "My Generation" / Full moon period on the Roman lunar calendar

Constructor: Simeon Seigel

Relative difficulty: Medium, Easy-Medium, somewhere in there

THEME: INSIDE OUT (64A: Thoroughly ... or how to read the four Across answers with parentheses in this puzzle) — grid has four answers with *double* parentheses—to understand the wackiness, you have to read the answer from the "inside out," i.e. inner parenthetical first, outer parenthetical second, entire entry third:

Theme answers:

• C(R(AFT)S)MEN (i.e. aft rafts craftsmen) (17A: Workers at the rear of some flat boats?)
• S(P(LATTE)R)ED (i.e. latte platter splattered) (25A: Result of dropping a tray of coffee drinks?)
• PSYCH(O(THE)R)APIST (i.e. the other psychotherapist) (39A: "Not that shrink!"?)
• S(C(ORE)S)HEET (i.e. ore cores scoresheet) (51A: Tally of samples at a geology competition?)

Word of the Day: Scott O'DELL (7D: Scott who wrote "The Black Pearl") —

Scott O'Dell (May 23, 1898 – October 15, 1989) was an American writer of 26 novels for young people, along with three novels for adults and four nonfiction books. He wrote historical fiction, primarily, including several children's novels about historical California and Mexico. For his contribution as a children's writer he received the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1972, the highest recognition available to creators of children's books. He received The University of Southern Mississippi Medallion in 1976 and the Catholic Libraries Association Regina Medal in 1978.

O'Dell's best known work is the historical novel Island of the Blue Dolphins (1960), which won the 1961 Newbery Medal and the 1963 Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis in its German translation. It was also named to the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award list. He was one of the annual Newbery runners-up for three other books: The King's Fifth (1966), The Black Pearl (1967), and Sing Down the Moon (1970). (wikipedia) 

The Black Pearl is a young adult novel by Scott O'Dell first published in 1967 about the coming of age of the son of a pearl dealer. (wikipedia)

• • •

My downloaded puzzle did not have the parentheses, so I had to infer what was going on, which added a level of challenge—always welcome on Thursday. Unfortunately, without the parentheses I actually failed to see that there were actually two "inside" word, one embedded inside the other. In other words, all I saw as AFT CRAFTSMEN, LATTE SPLATTERED, OTHER PSYCHOTHERAPIST, ORE SCORESHEET, leaving me to wonder why the clues sounded kind of off, and why finding one word embedded inside another was at all theme-worthy. But as I typed in the revealer clue, I got curious about what "answers with parentheses" meant, then suddenly realized, "oh, there's gonna be some pictorial element that my software missed, isn't there?" Yes. The double parentheses is indeed more impressive, from a technical perspective, and THE OTHER PSYCHOTHERAPIST is a real winner all around—funny, perfect phrasing on the clue ... with the parentheses sitting dead center, mwah, lovely. The others, to varying degrees, feel forced and contrived and not quite right, and that offness kind of saps the wackiness. AFT RAFT CRAFTSMEN is what the phrase wants to be—that's the wacky phrase juste. But with this parenthetical set-up, we're asked to accept the plural RAFTS—AFT RAFTS CRAFTSMEN—and that just sounds wrong. The same issue arises with ORE CORES SCORESHEET, although there it grates slightly less. One of the reasons THE OTHER PSYCHOTHERAPIST beats the others by such a wide margin is that you don't have to imagine a completely nonsensical situation in order to make sense of the wacky answer. It's funny in part because it's plausible and clear. Whereas there's no such thing as a "latte platter" (to say nothing of a "geology competition" (!?)) unless I wish real hard and the Wackiness Fairy makes it so. This ends up being one where you're supposed to CLAP at the cleverness, but the actual on-the-page results are mixed. (sidenote: since when is a CLAP a "gesture" ???! (34A: Two-handed gesture)?)

I'm a middle-aged man who has been teaching Cyclops-containing literature for decades and I've never heard or seen the term CYCLOPEAN. They are indeed big, the Cyclopes, but if I were to make an adjective out of their name, I would think the iconic trait would be one-eyed-ness. Lots of things are big. Gargantua was big, and they made an adjective out of his name, and it made sense. CYCLOPEAN is an offering from the Great God Word List, something no one would use unless the A.I. suggested it. The same is not true for "echo pedal" (singular), but it seems kinda sorta true for ECHO PEDALS plural. How many do you need for your so-called "rock concert"? But it's really the clue I'm quibbling with there, not the answer, which is a simple plural, and fine. PHAT is less fine. INURN is much, much less fine. The fill otherwise holds up OK. There's no real THRILL here, but I wasn't BORED, either.

[Odilon Redon, The Cyclops]

Hardest section for me was the SW, largely because of the bizarro "Citizen Kane" trivia (62A: Love of Charles Foster Kane in "Citizen Kane" = OPERA). I've seen that movie several times and when ROSEBUD and HIMSELF didn't fit here, I was completely at a loss, trying to remember some love interest's name that had somehow slipped my mind. But apparently he loved OPERA. I know there's the whole bit where he arranges for his girlfriend to star in an OPERA and she's pretty bad. But as with the Cyclops's size, I never thought of Kane's love of OPERA as particularly iconic. And since the two answers underneath OPERA (GRAIL, SINGS) were both very vaguely clued (66A: Coveted cup / 69A: Finks), I struggled a bit to get that corner to work. But overall this puzzle probably actually comes out on the "Easy" side. On Thursdays, it's usually the theme that gets you, and this theme was not particularly thorny.

Notes:

• 16A: Spoiler alert! It's bacteria! (E. COLI) — Why are you shouting!? About bacteria!? Is it because you're warning me not to eat the "spoiled" food?! OK, I hear you.
• 36A: Shrunken snack item (PRUNE) — I guess all dried fruit is in some way "shrunken," OK. I was looking for some brand-name mini-donut or something...
• 7D: Scott who wrote "The Black Pearl" (O'DELL) — Never heard of this guy, never heard of "The Black Pearl." I just never read much "young adult" fiction even when I was a young adult. I went from "Peanuts" to grown-up novels (via The Catcher in the Rye) and just skipped whatever was supposed to come in between. So I'm aware of some of the names of last-century YA stuff (The Chocolate War? A Separate Peace? The Outsiders?), but I have no specific experience with it. My mother can tell you if I'm misremembering any of this. My adolescence was mostly MTV and video games.

See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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