EMT's apparatus informally / THU 12-7-23 / Pseudoscientific process hinted at by four squares in this puzzle / Reputation ruiner / Persian suffix meaning land / Vegetable sometimes called ladies' fingers / Dr. Honeydew Muppet partner of Beaker / Complete stranger in slang

Constructor: Rebecca Goldstein

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: ALCHEMY (36A: Pseudoscientific process hinted at by four squares in this puzzle) — a rebus (i.e. multiple-letters-in-one-square) puzzle where you gotta change lead (PB) (in the Across) into gold (AU) (in the Down) in order to make sense of the answers at four different junctures:

Theme answers:

• RAP BATTLE (23A: Certain freestyle competition) / CAFE AU LAIT (3D: Alternative to a latte or flat white)
• ROOFTOP BAR (18A: Alfresco drinking establishment) / "USA! USA!" (11D: Patriotic World Cup chant)
• PUSH-UP BRA (50A: Undergarment providing a lift) / MAKE A U-TURN (32D: Reverse course)
• POP BOTTLES (56A: Soda containers, in the Midwest) / TEA URN (49D: Caterer's container)

[NOTE: if you are solving online or in the app, you need to put a slash between PB and AU in the rebus squares in order for your puzzle to be counted “correct”—so, “PB/AU”—apparently simple “AU” or “PB” works as well 🤷🏻 ]

Word of the Day: ELOTE (7D: Grilled corn, as a Mexican street food) —

In Central America (except Panama) and Mexico, an ear of corn, on or off the plant, is called elote (from the Nahuatl elotitutl 'tender cob'). This term is also used in Mexican and Central American communities in the United States. [...] In some regions of Mexico, elotes are sold in the street from food carts by stationary or mobile eloteros. The vendors offer a choice of hard or soft, small or large kernels, and seasonings, sour cream, mayonnaise, liquid cheese, chile powder, grated cheese, or butter. The elotes are kept hot by putting them in the brazier where they were cooked and are generally served soon after they are cooked. The elotes are usually boiled and transported wrapped in the husks, because cooking them in the husks gives them more flavor.

• • •

I really enjoyed this one, though it was way, way too easy, and the revealer (ALCHEMY) was a little straightforward and flat. It's also kind of ... ISH. I mean, you don't "turn lead into gold" so much as allow lead and gold to occupy the same box—that's more simultaneous existence than transformation. Also, if, as a solver, I am indeed changing one element into another, why am I changing lead into gold any more than I'm changing gold into lead. I guess the assumption is that Across comes first, Down second, but I definitely got AU first (with CAFE AU LAIT) and had to "change" it to PB to make sense of RAP BATTLE. So the revealer assumes a directionality (from this to that) that the solving experience doesn't necessarily provide. And again, ALCHEMY is also not the most dynamic of revealers, in that I could tell very early on that there was an AU/PB thing going on. But ... I'm also not sure what else the revealer could've been, and not every solver will be like me (sussing out the theme within the first minute or so, before ever hitting the revealer), so it's fine. The revealer (ideally) gets you to the PB->AU gimmick, if you weren't already there, and that's all it really has to do. It doesn't have to be flashy. The flash is in how the grid handles those rebus squares, and man does it handle them well. Earlier in the week we had a puzzle where the theme restrictions really worked against the quality of the theme answers, but today, the opposite somehow happens, in that we end up getting some real winners, like ROOFTOP BAR and PUSH-UP BRA and RAP BATTLE and MAKE A U-TURN, which, though I don't love it as an answer, definitely "hides" the AU in the cleverest way, and makes me feel grateful that for once I'm seeing a U-TURN in a puzzle that isn't a UEY (or, worse, a UIE—y'all went nuts in the comments yesterday over horrible TEC, which I have complained about in the past, possibly within the past week, but when you are talking about "Worst Fill Ever," have some respect and remember that UIE exists). 

The most impressive thing about the grid is something decidedly non-flashy, something it's not apt to get credit for, which is how whisper-quiet the ride is, given the demands of the theme. You've got four double-themers taking up huge chunks of space in all quadrants of the grid, plus the revealer anchored in the middle. and the grid ... barely squeaks or rattles. What am I gonna yell at? ISH SUI HTTP AHI ALOE? Why? They're common, yes, but they're a. real, not crosswords-only garbage, and b. they're short and well dispersed and therefore not a distraction from the main attraction. It's Such A Polished Grid. You Love To See It. It often takes a lot of work to get a theme-dense grid to come out clean—not flashy, but clean—so the accomplishment can go unnoticed. Well I am noticing it. And I'm grateful. Plus I actually do get some flash, in STROLLED IN (swagger!) and I HAD TO (self-confidence!) and POOL TOY (swimming!) and BUNSEN Honeydew (science!).

I did not know REB was a [Talmudic honorific], though having encountered REBBE in a Dell Crossword Puzzles book yesterday, I wasn't caught totally off guard. This definition of REB allows you to bypass the whole Civil War angle, which I'm fine with ("Johnny REB is the national personification of the common soldier of the Confederacy" (wikipedia)). The trickiest square in the grid, for me—the one where I kinda held my breath and hoped it was right—was the "X" at PHX / LUX. For the most part, I don't know the names of airports beyond some common three-letter codes, and the word "Harbor" in the clue for this one did not exactly scream "Phoenix!" (30D: Code for Sky Harbor Airport), so I had PHI in there at first. But LUI really seemed wrong for 42A: Illumination unit, so I pulled it and went with the "X"—LUX means "light" in Latin, so I figured that was the better guess, even though I had no idea LUX was a "unit" of any kind. I know the LUMEN and then I'm fresh out of light-related units, I think. No other significant struggles, though. As I say—too easy for a Thursday, but satisfying nonetheless. Great craftsmanship on display here. A nice variation on the Schrödinger puzzle theme type (where different letters are correct in both directions). Today's the last teaching day of the semester, so it's nice to have a puzzle to kick-start the good vibes! See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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